Noticeably Unnoticed: Hetalia
by 6Troublemakers
Summary: Natalia wants to have a quiet year at school, without any drama. But when Alfred F. Jones comes into school, and she is mistaken for his girlfriend, her hopes of having a quiet year are shattered. Will Natalia's life ever be the same?
1. Chapter 1

Why is it that I can't stop writing stories? I swore that my last story, _Lost In You_ ( s/9254751/1/Lost-In-You) would be my last story, but it didn't take long for the writing bug to find me again… I hope you guys enjoy this one, I'm not even sure where this is going, so let's figure it out!

(My dearest readers, this was originally a Naruto fanfic, and I'm sorry for changing it on you all of the sudden, but no Naruto character would accomplish what I needed accomplished in this story.) Anywho, here's a key for all of the characters:

Alfred F. Jones = America

Natalia Arlovskaya= Belarus

Seychelles = Seychelles

Wy = Principality of Wy

Lukas = Norway

Elizabeta Héderváry = Hungary

Gilbert Beilschmidt = Prussia

All that Natalia Arlovskaya wanted when she walked into school on the first day was to have a normal year. She was a junior now, and after all of the misfortunes and mishaps of last year, it would be a great year to be under the radar. She wore a her dad's old, baggy sweater with leggings, her hair sporting pigtails and to top it all off, big bulky glasses.

She had completed her mission thus far, and she decided that it might be nice to go to the first football game of the season later in the evening. She had decided to abandon all of her friends, because there was a chance for drama. But now that she had no boyfriend, or any friends, she felt a lot more free. Lunches were always awkward, with not having any friend and such, but she made the most out of them by eating in a closet that was always unlocked near her locker.

She always ate her peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the dark, nestled in the corner where two of the three metal racks met. The gap was just big enough for Natalia to sneak in and cross her legs comfortably. From this corner, she could also listen to the commotion outside. She practically knew everything about everyone that way, but there was no one to share such gossip with, and no one would listen to her anyway.

While she was going back and forth between going to the game, or not going to the game in her dark closet, she heard someone wriggle the door knob. She hoped that it wasn't the janitor, or a teacher who wanted to cause her trouble for eating in a closet.

But before she could even think up another possibility, the door swung open, and the light poured in unforgivingly, revealing Natalia's presence and the presence of someone else. But as soon as the light appeared, it disappeared. The dirty blonde boy pushed a girl with silky, brown hair into the rack that had buckets and other cleaning supplies. Natalia couldn't believe her eyes, and she couldn't much less make her presence known. She couldn't move, and to top it all off she still had peanut butter and jelly in her sticky fingers, and she couldn't close her mouth.

She tried to make out the faces of the two lovers stuck together in the dark. But as the brunette boy moved to the girl with silky brown hair's neck, she made out the girl's face. It was Elizabeta Héderváry. Natalia pulled her knees up to her chest and pushed up her glasses to try to make out the boy's face.

Things were getting heated between the two lovers, and Natalia was growing more and more uncomfortable, but she needed to see the boy's face. Elizabeta was kneeling before the boy and tugging at his zipper, he moved to press his body to the metal rack and look down at Elizabeta, face flushed. Natalia's mouth hung open even wider when she noticed who it was, it was Alfred F. Jones. He was the school's newest student, and he hadn't been in school for more than a week.

Natalia had to shut her eyes when she realized where Elizabeta's mouth was going. She started to grow even more uncomfortable and nervous at the sound of it, she felt like she was intruding on their personal life. But when in fact, weren't _they_ intruding on her personal life? After all, it was her closet. Not that many people knew that little fact.

Natalia heard the final grunts from Alfred, and she opened her eyes again when she was reassured by the sound of a zipper and the stirring of the two lovers. She saw Elizabeta give Alfred a kiss, and promise to keep this a secret. He told her that he'd see wait inside for a little while longer so that no one would see them together. Elizabeta nodded and slipped out of the room. Natalia scrunched her nose in thought, why would they need to keep this a secret?

Then she remembered something that she had heard in her history class from Wy and Seychelles talking over her. She sat in between the best friends, and they just assumed that she wasn't listening, or that she'd have no one to tell anyway. The latter more true than the former.

"Oh my God! Did you hear the Gilbert and Elizabeta are dating?" Wy had said, disregarding the lesson for the day.

"Oh my God, yes! Aren't they so gross together? She'll cheat on him for sure," Seychelles replied.

If Gilbert and Elizabeta had broken up, Natalia would have heard about it from gossip mongers like Wy and Seychelles. She stifled a gasp, Alfred and Elizabeta couldn't be seen together, because Elizabeta was still with Gilbert!

But Natalia had to give Alfred credit, it was not even a full week that he had been at this school and he was already hooking up with girls in the closet. Natalia scrunched her nose in distaste, this meant that she would have to find a new closet if this was going to be an everyday occurrence.

Alfred checked his cell phone, which dangerously illuminated the room. Natalia prayed that the dark sweater she was wearing would help her blend in. Alfred walked to the door, and reached for the doorknob, then he finally smelled something that he had smelled since he and Elizabeta came into the closet. He turned around and sniffed the air again. He made his way around the room, and Natalia's heart was beating so loud that she was sure he could hear it.

Alfred finally stopped at her corner, and he sniffed the air once again. He kneeled down and squinted his eyes in the dark, looking straight at a cowering Natalia. When Alfred's eyes finally focused on her, he smirked and waved at her. Without saying a word to her, he got up and walked right out.

Natalia let out a long overdue sigh and she wondered what Alfred could have been smelling. She looked in her old beat up messenger bag for something, anything that could have given her away. But as she was searching through the endless papers on her bag, it came to her.

The answer was on her sticky fingers that were smearing the oil of the peanut butter everywhere. She closed her bag and searched around her for her sandwich, when she found it, she stared at it. Could it be that her favorite lunchtime treat had given her away? The answer seemed possible. She stood up and walked out of the closet quickly, then she threw away the traitor sandwich in the nearest trash can. That stupid sandwich had gotten her caught, and this was supposed to be the year that she spent unnoticed.

Natalia finally did decide to go to the football game. She went by herself, and she wore a grey wool sweater with black leggings, so as to blend in. She watched as the cheer team, which she was formally a part of last year, yelled and chanted with the crowd. Part of her missed cheering, while the other part told her that this was what was best, especially after the events of last year. What made all of this even more worse was the fact that she had gotten her backhand spring last year for try outs to make Varsity again, and she didn't even get to show it off.

The cold of the night started to set in. Konoha always had a decent football team, but tonight they weren't doing so well; the defense was sloppy and the offense was indecisive, making for a poor game. Natalia sat at the top of the bleachers, freezing and disappointed in the game. She left when there were two minutes left in the second quarter.

She made her way down through the bleachers and weaved her way through the fans, still holding out for hope. But if there was anything that she learned from cheerleading, it was that the first quarter almost always determined the outcome of the game.

Seeing as all of it was useless, she exited the stadium and started to walk around the fenced side to try to find her car.

Back at the game, it was the marching band's turn to perform. As the marching band was nearing the climax of the music, the crowd burst out laughing and cheering. Two people, obviously boys, ran across the football field, the whole one-hundred yards without fail or even slowing down. What was special about these boys, were that they were both stark naked, just tennis shoes and balls. But of course, to do a prank such as this, one had to wear a mask. They both wore super hero masks, one appeared to be Iron Man, the other Captain America, but it's not like anyone could tell, they were running so fast that it looked like a streak of skin and red or blue.

The two boys were heading for the other side of the football field, near the fenced area of the parking lot. They were planning to jump the fence and get into the getaway car.

Natalia couldn't find her car, because like her clothes as of recent, it was gray. She decided to stand in front of the fence and scan the area, because that way she could see a wider span of cars. The parking lot was so dimly lit though, that she couldn't make out what the color of each car was anyway. She scratched her head and paced back and forth.

Meanwhile, the two boys streaking were leaping carelessly over the fence. Natalia barely had time to think before she collided with the one in the Captain America mask and they fell over.

"Ow! Shit god damn!" the naked boy cursed on top of her.

Natalia stared up at the boy, and she swore that she had heard his voice somewhere before. He tried to get off of her, but the edge of his jagged mask was caught on her wool sweater.

"Hurry the fuck up!" his naked comrade shouted from the getaway car.

"I'm trying!" he yelled back. He then turned to Natalia and twisted his head to look at the approaching security guards. In a move of desperation, he took off his mask and left it stuck to Natalia's sweater. He tried to hide his face as he ran and jumped into the backseat of the getaway car. But it was too late, Natalia knew that head of dirty blonde hair anywhere.

It had to have been Alfred.

**Soooo, what did you all think? **** Leave me a review and tell me if you want more or not!**


	2. Chapter 2

**This has been changed from a Naruto fanfic to a Hetalia fanfic. Sorry, but I couldn't decide a good enough character in Naruto with the right personality to help this story get where it needs to go. Well, whether you are a Naruto fan or Hetalia fan, please enjoy nonetheless. **

The next school day was not good for Natalia. Once again, she tried to dress dull and unappealing, and tried to blend into the background, but since everyone found out that she was the girl run over by the streakers, they kept asking her questions.

"So do you know who it was?" Seychelles asked in history class. Natalia was surprised that Seychelles was even talking to her, but she decided not to encourage conversation. She shrugged and looked at the chalk board, trying to ignore Seychelles' and Wy's questions.

"I heard that it was Alfred and Mathias," Wy told Seychelles, trying to get information out of her.

"I dunno," Natalia flatly replied. Wy frowned, seeing as getting information out of Natalia would be hopeless since she knew nothing, or wouldn't tell anything if she did.

It was finally time for lunch, and Natalia was sluggishly walking to her locker to retrieve her classic sandwich. But as she was walking towards her locker, she saw a bothersome boy standing by it. Natalia sighed and decided to try to wriggle her way past them to her locker.

"Quit fucking my girlfriend," Gilbert threatened. Alfred smirked and leaned up against the locker behind him, which consequently was Natalia's locker. Natalia stopped in her tracks and pushed up her glasses with her index finger, of course it was just her luck that two troublesome boys would be arguing outside of her locker.

"I'm not fucking your girlfriend bro," Alfred said with a smirk on his face. Natalia took small steps towards her locker, trying to listen in to gauge was time was a good time to get to her locker.

"Really? 'Cause I heard she gave you a blowjob," Gilbert took a menacing step forward, but Alfred seemed unfazed and was trying to play it off cool.

"Exactly, I'm not fucking her," Alfred said with a triumphant smirk. Once Gilbert got his humor he almost lunged at him, and he would have, if a little hunched over Natalia hadn't stepped in and tried to sneak a hand behind Alfred. Alfred noticed the small milky hand trying to make contact with the dial behind him. He wanted to avoid a fight, to protect his image if nothing else, but he also wanted to keep a secret, just like he had promised Elizabeta.

"Besides, I already have a girlfriend," Alfred said without thought. He grabbed Natalia's hand and pulled her into his arms. Natalia's red face was buried into his large chest and she wanted to escape, but his grip was so strong that it seemed useless.

Gilbert made a face, and leaned in closer to get a better look at Alfred's supposed girlfriend's face.

"Natalia?" he asked. Then he stood up straight and gave Alfred a questioning look.

"Yeah, we got together a few days ago. I'm absolutely crazy for her," he flashed a small down at Natalia, who was still blushing madly and confused.

Gilbert gave a weird look to Natalia and Alfred, but he walked away nonetheless. Natalia was shocked at his immediate retreat, but it was probably due to the fact that Gilbert was in denial over his long time girlfriend's treachery. Alfred kept up the façade until Gilbert disappeared from view, and then his grip on Natalia softened and she shoved him away.

"Wh-What the heck?!" she stammered, still blushing and confused.

Alfred just shrugged, "Sorry, but it had to be done,"

"No it didn't! Tell Gilbert that it's a lie!" she demanded.

Alfred smirked down at her, "Sorry, no can do. I can't get into another fight again,"

"So you're perfectly okay with ruining someone's life for your own selfish needs?"

Alfred paused to think and leaned up against the locker next to Natalia's, "Yeah, I guess so,"

Natalia shook her head and played with the dial to her locker, "You're unbelievable,"

Alfred put his face in front of Natalia's, probably too close for comfort in fact. Natalia's breathing stopped as he studied her face with knit eyebrows.

"I guess you'll do," he sighed and pulled away.

Natalia's cheeks turned bright red once more, "What do you mean I'll do?"

Alfred shrugged nonchalantly, "I need to keep you around until this all dies down,"

Natalia glared at him, "But you didn't even ask me if I wanted to be your fake girlfriend,"

"Seeing as no one will look at you anyway, I'm probably the best you'll get,"

Natalia puffed up her cheeks in annoyance, then decided that arguing with him wasn't worth the energy anymore. She pulled her peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of her locker and she started to walk away. Not to her closet of course, because she didn't want Alfred joining her, but she figured walking around school to avoid him would be a good escape plan.

"Hey, where are you going?" Alfred called. He ran to catch up with her, and Natalia started pumping her legs madly so that he couldn't catch up with her, but it was to no avail. Alfred was so much taller than her.

"Away from you," Natalia replied as nonchalantly as Alfred claimed her to be his girlfriend.

"But don't you think couples should eat lunch together?" he asked, feigning innocence. Or maybe he was just stupid, Natalia didn't know.

"No, I don't, because we're not a real couple," Natalia kept trying to walk away from him, but Alfred could easily catch up with her no matter what.

"Oh, so you'd prefer to hide in closets then?" Alfred smirked.

Natalia stopped in her tracks and then turned to him, "You're an idiot, do you know that? I was trying to have a nice peaceful year with no drama until you came along,"

"Who says that you're not going to have a peaceful year?" Alfred tried.

"You, when you said that I was your girlfriend," she shook her head and started to walk away again.

"But that shouldn't change anything!" Alfred protested.

Natalia shook her head once more, "Yes it will! All the girls will make my life hell," she almost added in _again_, but she didn't really feel like having a heart to heart with the likes of Alfred.

Alfred rolled his eyes, "No they won't, quit worrying and come to lunch with me,"

Natalia stopped, and gave Alfred an incredulous stare, "You don't know girls at this school. Since there are so many guys and so little girls, they think that they can have any guy they want. So just do me a favor and find someone else to be your girlfriend, I really don't feel like your drama this year,"

"But every other girl would get too attached, and you don't seem that way to me," Alfred smiled down at her. For a fleeting moment, she felt like she could trust him, but then she shook it off after being reminded of the events of last year. If only he knew how "attached" she could really be.

"Fine, I'm done arguing with you," she finally said. Natalia just wanted the conversation to be over because he had unintentionally brought up some memories that she didn't want to remember at this moment, or at any other moment.

"So yes you'll eat lunch with me?" Alfred asked with hope.

"Nope, leave me alone," Natalia replied quickly and ruthlessly.

"Wait! But Natalia," Alfred shouted after her as she ducked into a nearby bathroom. She hoped that he wouldn't venture into the girls' bathroom, because that would just lead Seychelles and Wy to ask her even more questions in history, questions that she never wanted to answer.

Once she realized that Alfred wasn't going to follow her into the bathroom, she decided to go over to the handicapped bathroom, lock the door, and sit in a corner and eat her sandwich, the sandwich that had betrayed her not even twenty-four hours earlier.

Yes, it was gruesome and dirty to eat in a school bathroom, but she wouldn't dare step outside knowing that Alfred was out there, looking for her, trying to make her eat lunch with him, as if that would confirm their "relationship" at all.

The next day, the whole school seemed to know about Natalia and Alfred's "relationship". Alfred took every opportunity to tell everyone of their relationship, and find her during passing periods to confirm rumors and pretend like she was the love of his life. But of course, Natalia never said anything interesting to Alfred, but he just pretended that she was funny, and he kept laughing. All that Natalia could do was hang her head in shame and pray that her gray sweater could blend into the gray lockers.

"Alfred, go to class," Natalia mumbled as she searched madly for her history notebook in her locker.

"No, I'll walk you to class then I'll go to class," Alfred said with a smile plastered on his face.

Natalia glared at him, "Go to class now," she ordered.

Alfred tried to hold her gaze for as long as he could, but her aura was becoming more and more intimidating, and her glare was nasty. Alfred sighed and looked away, she sure knew how shoot a nasty glare.

"Okay babe! I'll catch you after class," he practically yelled to curious onlookers, who were already gawking at the two. Alfred disappeared into the crowd of students and Natalia sighed and continued her search for her notebook. It wasn't at all where she usually put it, so where was it? She didn't have a locker partner and she never let anyone borrow her notebook for fear that it might make them "friends" in the other person's mind.

She finally found her notebook on the top shelf, which she could barely reach anyway, so she wondered how it had gotten up there. She noticed that a page was folded up and sticking out of the top of the notebook, it had her name written on it and she wondered if this was an old notebook, or if another girl named Natalia had this locker before her and left her notebook in it.

But she opened to the page and she was shocked at what she saw. Her head was swimming, and it wasn't until the bell rang that she snapped out of it. She turned around quickly and bumped into someone.

"S-Sorry," she stuttered out an apology, then pushed up her glasses using her index finger.

The boy, Lukas Bondevik, looked down at her, studying her eyes before speaking, "I don't believe that you and Alfred are really dating,"

Natalia wanted to say that he was right, but then she realized that if she told one person, then everyone would know, and Alfred would make an even bigger scene. She decided to take the easy road.

"Oh no, we are, I like him so much," she faked a smile, hoping that her performance was good enough. Lukas kept studying her face, and she bit her bottom lip nervously.

"Well I'll be late to class, see you around Lukas!" Natalia rushed. But as she brushed past him her history notebook slipped out of mess of binders and papers in her arms. Natalia walked away quickly without even noticing that she dropped her notebook.

Lukas bent down and picked up her notebook. He noticed the piece of paper sticking out with her name on it, he opened to the page. He noticed that the left page was line after line with the word "die" and the right page had a note on it.

"If you don't leave Alfred, we'll make sure that you disappear."

Lukas knitted his eyebrows and stared down at the note, wondering who could have written such a thing. He decided to keep the notebook for evidence and he walked to class, which so happened to be the history class that Natalia was in right now.


	3. Chapter 3

In history class, Natalia was staring down at her desk, while she heard the girls around her gossiping about her.

"She's so ugly, why is Alfred with her?" she heard a girl say.

"She's easy, isn't it obvious?" the other girl said.

"Maybe she'd look better without glasses?" another one said from behind her.

"No, her sour look ruins everything," her friend replied.

Even Seychelles and Wy were passing notes and glaring at Natalia instead of gossiping over her as was customary by now. When the teacher turned his back, girls threw paper at Natalia's head. She tried to keep her head down, and ignore it. And to make matters worse, she dropped her history notebook and didn't have any of her notes.

Natalia decided to take out a piece of paper from her binder instead, but when she opened up her binder to pull a piece of paper out, she saw that whoever sabotaged her notebook also made their way to her binder. All off her notebook sheets, without fail, had the word "die" written on every line. She tried hard to choke back tears, and she looked around at her peers, trying to see if any of them noticed her obviously distressed emotional state.

Natalia knew that she had to take notes, so she looked around, trying to see if anyone would make eye contact with her. But the only person who dared to look at her was Lukas, and his cold questioning stare sent her right back to staring at her lap.

With seemingly the world against her and no notebook paper to take her notes on, she just shrunk in her seat, and looked at nothing but her lap for the rest of the period.

Natalia walked to her locker, after waiting for almost everyone to walk out of the classroom at the end of her period. When she neared her locker, there was no sight of Alfred anywhere, which was a blessing as much as it was a curse. On her locker, a row of condoms was taped.

Natalia stared at her locker in disbelief then scolded herself for her disbelief. At this point she shouldn't be disbelieving anything, because the desperate girls at school were relentless, as in every other high school.

She did not want to touch the condoms, instead she opened her locker and tried to find any other signs of sabotage. Seeing no clear signs of sabotage, she put her binders in and looked around for her peanut butter and jelly, which seemed to be crushed under her textbooks. Natalia knew that she didn't put her sandwich there, so it must have been the girls that were breaking into her locker.

"Hey Natalia!" Alfred approached with his signature stupid, clueless grin plastered on his face.

The pale blonde girl tried to glare up at him, but her watery eyes betrayed her.

Alfred's mouth opened with confusion, "What's wrong?"

Natalia pursed her lips and returned to her locker, although she had finished her search and found what she was looking for, but she could not bring herself to receive sympathy from the likes of Alfred.

But Alfred didn't need to ask her to know what was wrong. He saw the row of condoms hanging off her locker and knew what she was so upset about. He moved her locker door to retrieve the condoms from the front of it. He held up the condoms with a confused look. But it didn't take him long to figure out who put this on Natalia's locker, he could tell by the way the group of girls stared intently at him and gauged his reaction.

Alfred just smiled and held up the condoms, "I owe a big thanks to whoever did this," he talked loudly trying to get the girl's attention who did it. He wrapped an arm around Natalia and closed her locker with his foot.

"We've been needing more condoms," he nodded to the girls across the room who were staring at them suspiciously. "Let's go test them out now Natalia," Alfred started to lead Natalia away from her locker, and away from the immature girls.

As what happened registered in Natalia's head, she realized where Alfred was taking her, and it wasn't to her closet for lunch.

She stopped in her tracks and Alfred stopped to look at her, "Where are we going?" she asked in a quiet voice.

"To my car so we can go to lunch," Alfred replied, as if her question were stupid.

Natalia shook her head madly, "No! I'm staying here," she insisted.

Alfred looked at her as if she were crazy, "Even with all of those girls bullying you?"

Natalia hesitated for a moment, "Y-yes," she replied unsurely.

"You don't really want to stay here, come on, let's go," Alfred tried to grab her hand but Natalia pulled away.

"You don't have to come to my rescue you know, I can handle myself," she stared up at him with conviction.

"It's what boyfriends are supposed to do," he told her softly.

"Well you're not my boyfriend, I can take care of myself," she stomped her foot for emphasis.

"And by taking care of yourself you mean eating lunch alone in a closet?" Alfred said feigning innocence.

"You're unbelievable! Quit trying to save every girl, because this girl doesn't need it. Go back to getting blowjobs from skanks in closets and leave me alone," she all but yelled out of exasperation. She then turned to walk to her closet, and this time, Alfred didn't follow.

Natalia sat in her corner in the janitor's closet and stared at the door. She wondered if she really hurt Alfred, but if she did, he might've taken the hint for once. But now that her safety was ensured in her dark closet and she knew that Alfred wouldn't follow her, she started to cry with a big mouth full of peanut butter and jelly.

It was just like last year wasn't it? How much more could a person take? She wondered if she could be homeschooled, that way no one would ever bother her and she'd surely have no peers. And no Alfred, which was even better.

Her vision grew blurry from her tears and she wiped her endless tears on the back of her dad's old beat up sweater. She cried for everything and everyone that ever was, but mostly, she cried for her situation, which had gotten so bad so soon.

She almost didn't noticed the light from the hallway cut in through the secure darkness only for a brief moment until she felt someone pulling her hands away from her teary face. The person handed her a tissue and she wiped her tears with her tissue, mouth still obviously full of peanut butter and jelly as she made stuffy moaning sounds.

The person that handed her a tissue then started to stroke her hair and then move to hold her. She knew this strong chest in front of her that was tending to her tears, and she didn't try to shove him away. And after a while, she swallowed the bit of sandwich that was stuck in her mouth.

The bell eventually rang, and Natalia's tears slowed until she was just heaving from sobs without tears. The person who helped her through her tears grabbed her hand and helped her up, and Natalia came face to face with the person whom had saved her.

"Thank you," Natalia croaked as rubbed her face, as if trying to rub off the redness from her tears.

"You're welcome," her savior, Lukas, softly replied. He nodded towards the door, "We should get to class," he told her. Natalia nodded and allowed him to open the door for her and touch the small of her back to lead her out.

But as they were exiting the closet, Alfred rounded the corner. He saw Natalia and Lukas leave the closet, and his experience with Elizabeta and him on his first week of school came back to him. He immediately assumed the worst and approached Lukas angrily.

"What the hell was going on in there?" Alfred yelled. Lukas said nothing, but matched Alfred's own bright blue eyes with his cold blue eyed gaze.

"Alfred, leave him alone, he was just trying to help me," Natalia defended.

Alfred, once again, thought of the worst, "What do you meaning 'trying to help you'?!"

Natalia glared at him coldly, "Just shut up, you know that nothing is going on. And it's not like you came to make sure I was okay either,"

"That's because you told me to quit rescuing you!" Alfred yelled, trying to make Natalia see the error of her ways.

Natalia was out of ways to retaliate against Alfred, and she was out of patience as well. "Whatever, I'm going to class," she called over her shoulder as she already started to walk away.

"W-Wait! Natalia," Alfred called after her. But it was too late, Natalia rounded the corner and left Alfred and Lukas in the dust.

"Damn," Alfred swore under his breath as he looked to down the hall that Natalia disappeared down.

Alfred then turned to Lukas once he felt his icy gaze on him.

"You're hurting Natalia more than you think," he pulled Natalia's notebook from his backpack and opened to the page of which the word "die" was scribbled on it, complete with the horrible message addressed to her. He slammed the notebook into Alfred's chest and followed Natalia down the hallway.

Alfred read the pages of the notebook incredulously, over and over again until he was sure that he had missed his next period class in its' entirety.

When he read the message, "If you don't leave Alfred, we'll make sure that you disappear," for what seemed like the hundredth time, he closed the book.

He vowed to himself that he would protect Natalia not matter, even if she didn't want to be saved, and even if she hated him. He also wanted to ensure that no one would ever console his girlfriend from crying except for him ever again.

The latter of the promises was the most ambitious, after all, Natalia never agreed to be his girlfriend, and he didn't like her, right?

**Dun dun dun! Right now the story is boring, but wait until I get to the climax and shock all of you! Haha just kidding, I seriously don't even know what the climax is yet... Keep reading and keep reviewing! 333**


	4. Chapter 4

**Once I read a review that said "if you don't update I'm going to throw myself out of a 10 story window" so in the interest of preventing suicide, enjoy. **** Also, some things may be random, and there may be some humor, and things may be overly dramatic (sorry to who called this story realistic, as you'll find out in this chapter, it's not realistic at all) I decided to try to write a story that was more like a manga rather than my usual serious ways **

"Hey Natalia, lunch today?" Alfred happily asked as he held onto Natalia's locker door and swung it back and forth between his hands.

"No," Natalia grabbed her locker door and glared at Alfred. She was pretending to try to find her sandwich, but really she was looking for other signs of breaking and entering and vandalism.

Alfred snatched the locker door away from her and opened the locker wide. He bumped into Natalia lightly to get her to move and then he looked in her locker for her sandwich. Upon finding it, he held it up in front of Natalia.

"It really took you that long to find a damn sandwich?" Alfred asked, smirking down at Natalia as if he had won.

Natalia snatched the sandwich from Alfred's grasp and she glared at him, not speaking.

"Or, were you looking for this?" Alfred asked, pulling her history notebook out of his backpack. Natalia's eyes widened and her head started to spin, it felt like all of the blood rushed to her head at that very moment.

Natalia shook her head and grabbed for the notebook, but Alfred moved the notebook away from her grasp.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" Alfred inquired with a look of concern on his face. His blue eyes seemed so genuine that Natalia had to stop herself from believing that he might actually have feelings for her.

"Because it's none of your business, now give it back," Natalia tried again for the notebook, but Alfred grabbed her wrist instead and pulled her closer to him so that she had no choice but to look at him.

"I could have helped," he softly told her.

"No you couldn't have! I told you that girls here are crazy, and we're not even together so it doesn't matter," Natalia all but screamed at him.

Alfred dropped her wrist. "I'll talk to them," he tried.

Natalia shook her head violently, "No! It won't help. The only way to get them to leave me alone is for us to break up," it sounded silly, trying to break things off with a guy that she didn't even agree to date.

Alfred looked at the ground, and Natalia noted that he almost looked hurt, "Fine, if that's what you want,"

"That is what I want," Natalia assured him.

Alfred nodded and stalked off, Natalia was relieved to finally be left alone, but at the same time she felt bad. But at least now she could eat lunch in peace.

By the afternoon classes, everyone had found out about their "break up". And Seychelles was always one to try to get the dirt on everyone.

In Pre-Calculus she started to ask questions, "So, you and Alfred broke up? I'm sorry to hear that,"

Natalia knew that Seychelles was lying, and that she was just as excited as every other girl to have Alfred free, but she just nodded.

"You guys were such a cute couple! What happened?" Seychelles tried again.

Natalia figured that silence was the way to go, so she shrugged her shoulders and stared down at her lap.

"So do you find if I ask him out or hook up with him? I mean—if it's okay with you,"

Natalia knew that Seychelles didn't need to want her approval, because nothing would stop her anyway. Natalia just shook her head, because she honestly didn't care what happened to Alfred at this point, she was just glad that the bullying was finally going to stop.

"Great, I'll find him after school," Seychelles smiled and then returned to taking notes.

After the final bell rang, Natalia walked to her locker, only to find that her property was not yet done being vandalized. Someone had written "whore" on her locker in red spray paint, and then they threw all of her stuff on the ground and slammed her locker shut.

Natalia choked back tears and slumped on the floor, trying to clean up her stuff. All of her papers were ripped out of her notebooks and her textbooks were all missing either the front or back cover. She wondered how she was going to pay for all of her broken text books, and how she was going to turn in her homework on time. She also wondered if anyone saw who did this, or if anyone would have stopped them if they did. It looked like too big of a job for one person, so maybe there were a few involved.

"Hey, has anyone seen Alfred?" she heard a girl ask another group of girls.

"No, we're all looking for him too," another replied.

"He couldn't have gotten far, the bell just rang," another girl chimed in.

"I need to ask him out," the first girl said.

"Well get in line, so does everyone else," a feisty girl in the group challenged.

"Whatever, I'll find him myself," the first girl said.

"Not if we find him first!"

Pretty soon almost every girl in the school was looking for Alfred, and Natalia listened helplessly as she picked up her broken things. Natalia wondered if she should be concerned, because it seemed like every female in the school was on a man hunt for him. She sighed and shook her head as she looked through her papers, trying to find something worth salvaging.

How could Alfred cover so much ground in so little time? This was his second week at school, and he had already almost gotten beat up by Gilbert, hooked up with Elizabeta in the closet, and became the apple of everyone's eye. Well, his smile was infectious and his personality was always so bright and cheerful, so his popularity made sense when thought about.

Natalia opened her locker and started to put her destroyed belongings back into it. She wondered if she should find Alfred and apologize, because the hunt for him was growing by the minute. Pretty soon everyone was in a frenzied search for Alfred, and Natalia decided to find him before anyone else did.

"Girls at this school are bat shit crazy," Natalia mumbled before closing her locker and walking down the hall to his homeroom. She knew that there was always after school tutoring in his homeroom, but no one really ever went, it was also the last place that anyone would look for him.

She neared his homeroom and just as she was reaching for the doorknob, someone opened the door from inside and she stepped away from the door. It was Matthias who walked out, he smiled at her.

"Looks like everyone's after your boyfriend," he teased.

Natalia scrunched her nose in annoyance, "He's not my boyfriend anymore,"

"Yeah whatever. Just be careful," Matthias waved her off as he walked to the doors to the parking lot at the end of the hallway.

"Be careful? What is he talking about?" Natalia wondered aloud to herself. She knew that the chances of Alfred being in his homeroom would be scarce, but she decided to open the door and walk inside anyway.

All that she found was Lukas, sitting at a desk and doing homework, the teacher had apparently already left. Lukas looked up from his work and stared at Natalia silently.

Natalia noted that he didn't look like the type who would need after school tutoring, but maybe appearances were deceiving.

"H-Hey Lukas, have you seen Alfred?" she softly said. When Lukas didn't budge or reply, but kept staring at her, she walked closer to him and sat in the desk in front of him, her legs were parallel to the front of Lukas's desk.

"Alfred, have you seen him?" she asked again, this time with a louder voice.

Lukas said nothing but held her gaze.

"I-I'm sorry, you're probably really busy, I'll just go," she started to get up, but Lukas grabbed her wrist and pulled her back into the seat. He stood up from his desk and leaned down so that his face was only inches away from hers, still holding her gaze with his cold blue eyes.

"Don't let Alfred walk all over you," Lukas finally said. His grip on her wrist didn't waver, and Natalia figured that she'd better shake her head to ever have a chance of him letting go, and finding Alfred.

Lukas dropped her wrist, sat back down in his seat and returned to his work. "Check the library," Lukas offered.

Natalia nodded, "Thank you Lukas," and she rushed out of the classroom.

She was all but running in the hallway to the library. She kept hearing girls meeting up with each other and trying to figure out where Alfred was. Natalia had a lead on where Alfred was, she just didn't know how she was going to sneak Alfred out of the school without anyone noticing.

When she finally burst in the doors of the library a few moments later, she looked scanned the area. Seeing no obvious signs of Alfred, she ran down every row of books and looked under every table and in every corner.

She found him nowhere, and she was about to go back to the original plan of looking in classrooms until she saw a hand appear in the book drop behind the librarian's desk and wave to her. She knew that big hand anywhere, it had to be Alfred.

"Alfred," Natalia called in a hushed voice. Alfred shushed her and motioned for her to go around the librarians desk to find him.

Natalia complied and went around the desk to find him with his knees pulled up sitting by the book drop. She wondered how Lukas could have known that Alfred was in here, she didn't know much about Lukas, all that she knew was that he had an intimidating aura about him and he helped her when she was crying.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in a hushed tone as she sat next to Alfred and pulled up her knees like him.

"Hiding from crazy girls," Alfred told her with a relaxed smile.

"Why didn't you just go home after school?" Natalia asked, irritated at his stupidity.

"I was on my way to your locker, but then some girl approached me and insisted that we go on a date this Friday night,"

"So why didn't you say no? It's not that hard…" Natalia sighed.

"I did, but they wouldn't take no for an answer! So after a group of girls approached me demanding that I hook up with them, I just decided to hide until they all left," Alfred told her.

Natalia rolled her eyes, "Wow, your life must be _so_ horrible. First you get a blowjob from Elizabeta in the closet and then a group of girls want you to hook up with them,"

"I know, isn't it?" Alfred stupidly agreed, not getting Natalia's sarcasm. Natalia had to stop herself from rolling her eyes a second time.

"Come on, let's go," Natalia offered him a hand as she stood up.

Alfred grabbed her ankle, "Are you crazy? I'm not going out there!"

"Yes you are, I have to get home to feed my cat. So let's go and confront these horny girls," Natalia shook his hand off her ankle and started to walk away.

"Wait! Natalia! Don't leave me alone!" Alfred begged.

"You won't be alone if you come along," Natalia called, she was already almost to the door.

Alfred bit his lip, stuck between two things he hated: being alone and crazy obsessive girls. Eventually, he decided to follow Natalia into the hallway.

"Hey, there he is!" a girl shouted when they were both barely out of the library. Two other girls, presumably her friends, joined and pretty soon they were cornering Alfred and Natalia.

Alfred grabbed Natalia's hand and she had to stop herself from laughing at his cowardice.

"I thought you guys broke up," the red head said with a frown.

"Tell them how you feel Alfred," Natalia ordered as she gave his hand a supportive squeeze.

Alfred swallowed hard.

**Yeah, that was five pages. So I'm calling this chapter good **** Yes, it's all far fetched, but since I'm writing this like a manga, I wanted to have fun with it **** please don't think that it's too ridiculous and stop reading! K bye **


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey everyone! Updates might be a little late and spread out on this story. My dream is to go to Germany and teach English as a second language, so right now I'm hauling butt to ace my German placement test. I want to transfer into a German university so wish me luck! 3 and enjoy these long, but belated, updates. 3**

"U-Um," Alfred stuttered. Looking like a small child cowering behind Natalia, who was much smaller than himself.

Natalia squeezed his hand, "Alfred, tell them," she urged.

Alfred bit his lip and tried not to look at the girls who were cornering him. "I… Uh," Alfred still couldn't form the words in his mouth, and Natalia was beginning to become impatient.

"Alfred, tell them what you told me," she looked up at him with impatience.

"See? He can't even turn us down," a girl said to her friends, they all giggled and Alfred blushed.

"Could it be that you want all three of us?" the red head in the middle asked innocently, fluttering her eyelashes flirtatiously. Alfred still said nothing, but stared at his shoes.

Natalia snapped, "He doesn't want any of you! You girls are so stupid! Quit focusing on guys for once and take no for an answer for once in your lives,"

The three girls exchanged looks with each other. "Well you're one to talk," a brunette finally spoke up.

"Yeah, that's right. You're the one who ran around the school trying to find Alfred when you found out that we all wanted a chance with him! Who's the desperate one now?" the red head crossed her arms and bit back.

Natalia was at a loss for words, and she wondered why she was standing up for a stupid guy like Alfred so much. Instead of saying anything, she let her silence speak like the words she couldn't find.

Alfred say Natalia's face fall, and he snapped out of his silence. He wanted so badly to be her hero, because he was everyone else's hero but hers. She had protected him all this time, and now it was long past his turn to protect her.

"Natalia was just trying to find me because she knew how much I needed her," he took a step forward and left Natalia a step behind him. "Unlike you three she doesn't chase guys around when they break up with their girlfriends," he turned to smile at Natalia. "and that's what I've always liked about her," his smile seemed so genuine that Natalia's mouth hung open with surprise from his heavy words.

"And I'm sorry but I love Natalia," he grabbed Natalia and kissed her on the cheek as if to solidify his claims. When he pulled away he then smiled at the red head, the brunette, and their friend. "Well we'd better go use those condoms that you guys gave us. Thanks again for that, but we might need some more soon," he pushed past the girls with Natalia in tow.

When they were safe in one of the empty hallways, Natalia dropped his hand. "What the hell was that?!" she demanded stomping her foot out of her embarrassment.

"I just thought I'd save you for once," Alfred shrugged, as if it were no big deal. He continued walking down the hall.

"Once again, I don't need you to save me," Natalia crossed her arms and pouted without knowing that she was.

Alfred turned around and sighed, "You're right, I need you to save me more than you need me to save you,"

Natalia faltered for a moment, she never realized that Alfred would admit his shortcomings as a self- proclaimed hero. "S-so what you're saying is you need me?" Natalia uncrossed her arms and brought them to her mouth, biting on her curled index finger and thinking.

"Yeah, I need you," Alfred sheepishly looked at his shoes. Maybe he was sheepish because of his pride, or maybe it was from his failures as the savior.

"You need me to protect you?" Natalia asked, confused and knitting her eyebrows.

"Yeah, I do," Alfred replied, barely audible.

Natalia bit down on her index finger even harder, trying to think of a reply. "Okay, I'll protect you," she started to walk towards Alfred, so that they could walk out of the crazy school together.

Natalia decided that in order to protect Alfred, she would have to pretend to be his girlfriend. What was another year of pretending to her anyway? She had already done it once before, she could do it again. But in order to protect Alfred, she had to set free her hopes and dreams of having a peaceful year.

"So you guys are officially back together?" Seychelles asked the next day in history class. Natalia nodded and stared at the board, trying to ignore their insistent chatter.

"And you're sure about that? We heard that you and Lukas had a pretty intimate moment before you found Alfred," Wy mischievously added.

Natalia's world stopped for a moment, how had anyone found out? Could it have been… No. She had to confront him herself.

"Matthias!" Natalia called, racing down the busy hallway after school. Matthias turned around and his smile disappeared once he saw her face.

"Oh hey Natalia, what's up?" Matthias asked.

"Don't ask dumb! You know what you did! Why did you tell everyone about me and Lukas?" she demanded.

Matthias smirked, "I don't know what you're talking about. You and Lukas never had anything, or did you?"

Natalia was taken aback and she shook her head quickly, "No, we didn't. So what are you telling people?" Matthias waved to some girls and Natalia turned around to glare at them. They immediately gave her a weird look and quickly walked away.

"Tell me what you did now," she stomped her foot and glared at him.

"Calm down," Matthias gave her a look as if she were being irrational, which she probably was. But Natalia's reasoning was that if she gave the impression of remaining faithful to Alfred, then there would be no more drama and all would die down.

"Don't tell me to calm down after you've spread all of these horrible rumors about me," Natalia challenged.

Matthias sighed and looked away; his usual aloofness wasn't going to work on her. "Listen," he started, he looked down at her seriously. "Lukas has a strong sense of justice, and he can't let things go. So don't mistake his sense of justice for something else,"

"What would I mistake it for?" Natalia softly asked.

Matthias's expression changed into his usual relaxed facial expression and he leaned down to pet her head, "Oh you're so funny sometimes Natalia," he gave her hair a good ruffling before he turned on his heel to join a group of girls that he just saw walk by.

Natalia watched him go with confusion before deciding to go to her locker herself. The mystery of her missing notebook hadn't been solved yet, but at least the girl's harsh teasing subsided for now. She approached her locker and dialed the combination. When she opened her locker, she once again checked for vandalism out of paranoia.

She was rifling through the individual pages all of her notebooks when she felt a presence beside her. She whipped around to find Lukas, with his usual serious expression and standing too close to Natalia for comfort. She had to stop herself from jumping at the sight of him.

"O-Oh Lukas, what do you want?" she asked, heart still racing. Lukas said nothing, but held up a notebook.

"My notebook!" Natalia snatched it. "Where'd you find it?" she rushed, hoping that Lukas hadn't read anything in the notebook.

"You dropped it," he simply replied.

"W-well thanks for picking it up," Natalia pushed up her glasses and placed the notebook in her locker.

"You're still going along with Alfred's games," Lukas said it as more of a statement than a question.

"N-no! We just got back together, that's all," Natalia lied with an unconvincing fake smile plastered on her face.

"You don't have to lie," Lukas's expression turned dark and a chill ran down Natalia's spine.

"I'm not lying! Honest," Natalia kept smiling, although her smile faltered for a moment.

"Don't try to protect someone who is only using you," Lukas said his bit and he walked off. Natalia watched him walk off with awe, and then Alfred came up to Natalia and hugged her from behind, surprising her. She squealed and pried herself out of his grasp.

"W-What the heck Alfred?" Natalia stammered, flustered and blushing once she pulled away enough to look at him.

"Let's go somewhere," Alfred suggested, with his usual goofy grin.

Natalia looked down the hallway where Lukas had just disappeared down and then she turned to Alfred and sighed, "Fine,"

Alfred pulled her into a big hug, "Yay! Let's go get ice cream," Natalia blushed and tried to free herself from his strong arms, but part of her didn't want to fight Alfred's nonsense anymore.

"What do you want Natalia?" Alfred asked, leaning down to look at the ice cream behind the counter.

Natalia pouted, she didn't want to be with Alfred at the moment, but right now she needed to get her mind off of a few things, and she told herself that that was the only reason she came.

"Chocolate I guess," Natalia shrugged.

"Oh that's sounds good! But I also want to try the lime and the cotton candy," Alfred beamed. Natalia sighed, he was such a little kid, but in a way, his innocence was refreshing.

"Then just get all three," Natalia mumbled.

"That's a good idea!" Alfred sang. "Hey, I'll take two chocolates, one cotton candy, and a lime all in different cups," he told the guy behind the counter.

Natalia and Alfred sat down at a table in the corner and Alfred took turns eating a bite of each of his ice cream cups. He was eating too quickly while Natalia just nibbled on her chocolate ice cream, thinking of what Lukas said. She was also thinking that Alfred was going to get a stomach ache from eating too much too quickly.

"So tell me about yourself," Alfred said in between spoonfuls of chocolate, lime, and cotton candy.

Natalia shot him a dirty look, "What does it matter to you?" she was always defensive when it came to talking about herself, and she never wanted to reveal her past, especially not to someone like Alfred.

"I just want to know, because you're my fake girlfriend remember?" Alfred cocked his head to the side like he usually did when he was confused.

"Well, I like to read, and I like to be alone," Natalia kept it vague, so as not to give away anything. But in reality, she hated to read, it was too hard for her to sit and stare at words for hours on end.

"That's boring," Alfred stated before shoving a big bite of lime ice cream into his mouth.

"So you think you're more interesting then?" Natalia bit back.

"Well yeah, I like to eat, and play sports, and watch TV, and play video games," Alfred said in all seriousness, as if any of that were interesting.

"And that's so much more interesting," Natalia rolled her eyes to denote her sarcasm.

"I know right?" Alfred smiled, then he returned to his ice cream.

Natalia rolled her eyes once more and started to slosh her now melting ice cream in the cup before her. "Hey, can you take me back to the school? I have to pick up my car and go home to do homework,"

Alfred nodded, not knowing that she desperately wanted to get away from him, "Fine, but let me finish my ice cream first,"

Natalia rolled her eyes and stomped her foot under the table.

Alfred looked up from his cotton candy ice cream, "Look, if you're that bored play with my bracelet or something," he took off his bracelet and handed it to Natalia, who took it reluctantly.

"And this is supposed to be fun?" she wondered aloud as she tested the white rubber material of the bracelet. It said "sleep is for the weak" or something to that effect, and Natalia couldn't help but think of how fitting that was, because Alfred was always so full of energy that she was sure he never slept. She decided to put it on her wrist anyway, because it seemed that that was what he wanted her to do.

"Bye Natalia!" Alfred shouted out of the car window as Natalia crawled out of the passenger seat and gave Alfred a little disinterested wave as she walked to her gray car. Alfred peeled out of the parking lot quickly, his driving as reckless as he.

Natalia searched her pockets for her car keys, and when she couldn't find it she put her gray backpack on the hood of her car and rifled through it. Natalia felt an intimidating presence behind her, and she turned to find Lukas unlocking the car next to her.

"O-Oh hi Lukas," Natalia stuttered, trying to show Lukas that she was unafraid, although he terrified her and she couldn't figure her out.

"Hey," Lukas replied straight faced. Natalia gave him a soft smile, before finally finding her car keys, as she stuck the key into her old beat up car, which did not unlock automatically, she noticed Alfred's bracelet on her wrist.

"God dammit," Natalia swore out loud. She didn't want to go home with his bracelet, that would surely raise questions from her older sister.

Lukas peeked his head out from behind his car. "Did you saying something?"

"O-Oh nothing! I just have Alfred's bracelet and I forgot to return it, that's all," she laughed uneasily and scratched the back of her head.

"He lives right by me," Lukas blankly replied.

"Oh! Then could you take his bracelet and drop it off for me?" Natalia wanted to avoid another conversation with Alfred that she would have a tough time getting out of, so if Lukas did it, as unfriendly as he is, surely it would be an easy task for him. But knowing Alfred, he'd probably invite Lukas inside, and then Lukas might kill him, and then Natalia would be questioned by police, which would be painful. Or at least that was Natalia's logic, so wouldn't it be easier if she just took the bracelet herself and avoid the police interrogation?

"O-Or I could follow you and drop it off myself, whatever works," Natalia rushed. Lukas opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but then he nodded and got into his car. Natalia wasn't sure what this meant, but when he started to back out of his parking spot, she realized that he wanted her to follow him. She scrambled to get into her car before Lukas left her in the dust.

Lukas pulled off and parked on the side of the road, and Natalia did the same. He turned off his car and got out, and Natalia likewise followed suit.

"So is this his house?" she asked, looking at an expensive looking apartment complex.

Lukas shook his head, "No, it's back there," he pointed to a dirt road that led behind the house.

"O-Oh! So are you going to take me there?" she asked, hoping that he'd just leave her to her own devices to find Alfred's house by herself. Lukas nodded and started to walk down the path; they walked behind the expensive apartment building and came across a rundown apartment complex.

"So this is it?" Natalia asked, unimpressed, she didn't think that Alfred would live in such a crummy area. Lukas said nothing, but nodded once slowly. He started to walk up the creaky stairs to the top floor, and Natalia scrambled to get to his side. Lukas stopped in front of a door half open, and he knocked on it lightly. The door swung open, and Natalia's eyes grew wide as she saw Alfred kiss another girl in the hallway.

She put her hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp and she dropped the bracelet that Alfred had given her earlier on the threshold. She turned and started to walk quickly, then when she reached the bottom of the stairs her walking turned into running, and she didn't stop until she was back in her car.

Lukas didn't follow her, instead he glared at Alfred's back, who now had his arm around the girl's back and he walked towards the stairs to return to his car.

**Wow, long chapter. It was seven pages long! *falls down dead* yes, it got rushed on some parts and there's many typos I'm sure, but I just wasn't feeling it… So yeah. And I've gotten questions on why I'm not making Belarus (Natalia) more obsessive and crazy. Well first off, I don't think that Belarus is like that at all, I think that she is too easily defined by her love for Russia and her obsession instead of who she really is. I see her as a girl who's feisty and rough around the edges, but on the inside she's really a sweetheart 3 and no, I don't have any bases on my opinion or any confirmation from Hidekazu Himaruya, so take my opinion for what it's worth and just enjoy the story!**


	6. Chapter 6

** I'm armed and dangerous with chocolate and coffee! Let's get 'er done ;) also, did you know that passive verbs is bad grammar? (I have to learn English super well so that I can teach it to foreign students!) so let's see if I can not use passive verbs **** Granted, some of my English is questionable, but let's give it a whirl for another whimsical chapter!**

** Also, I'm getting a lot of complaints about "this is so out of character!" so you know what? I'm writing a bonus chapter at the end of this chapter (so get comfortable) so we can see what "in character" really means.**

"Natalia!" Alfred beamed as he walked towards Natalia's locker. She shrank and tried to hide behind her locker door. Alfred immediately pulled the locker door away from her.

"Lunch?" Alfred asked with a dorky smile, not picking up on Natalia's body language.

Natalia yanked her locker door back away from him. "No," she shortly answered.

"You always say no! Just say yes for once, like when you said yes to getting ice cream with me," Alfred insisted, still smiling as if it were all a joke. Natalia shot him a glare and pretended to busy herself with the contents of her locker.

Alfred picked up on her body language and immediately knew what was going on, "Natalia, let me explain,"

Natalia perked up, hoping that her boyfriend—fake boyfriend—would consult her concerns.

Alfred looked around and then leaned in, "I can pay, if you're afraid of me knowing that you don't have any money,"

Natalia shook her head and went straight back to glaring. She slammed her locker door shut in anger and started to walk away, as if that had ever worked before; Alfred followed without fail.

"Why are you angry again?" Alfred asked with an exasperated sigh.

Natalia turned around, "Because you—you!" she couldn't bear to let the words come out.

"Because I want to pay?" Alfred gave her a confused stare.

Natalia snapped, "No! Because I went to return your damn bracelet and I saw you kiss some girl! What the hell was that? I thought we were together!" Natalia bit her lip after realizing what she just said.

"I—I," she tried to fill in the empty space that followed with empty words to deny what she had just said. She knew that she didn't like Alfred, but at the same time she didn't want to allow him to like someone else, for as selfish as she knew it was.

Alfred stared at his shoes, "So that's what you were mad over?"

Natalia rolled her eyes at his stupidity; didn't she already explain why she was mad?

"Well that was my girlfriend," Alfred spoke after a few minutes, daring to look up and look at Natalia's hurt expression.

"I figured as much," she shook her head, trying to shake off the tears, and she turned to walk away.

"Wait! Natalia!" Alfred reached out and grabbed her wrist. Natalia's first instinct was to shake him off and slap him, but instead she reveled in his warm grasp.

"You can still be my girlfriend—here I mean," Alfred spoke without thought.

"Is it because you need someone to save you?" Natalia softly asked, staring down at Alfred's hand on her wrist.

Alfred bit his lip, trying to think. But all of his thoughts led him to the same thing. "Yes," he finally said, previous intimidation gone from his voice.

Natalia pulled gently from his grasp and Alfred got the message for once, and he dropped her wrist. She started to walk away.

"Save yourself," she called, not daring to look at Alfred. She left him in the hall, and for once the safety of her closet just wouldn't do today. Instead, she walked to the library, which was usually empty during lunch, save for a few kids with no friends, which Natalia was a part of now.

She made her way through the tall, old bookshelves, the scent of old unused books hung in the air. Natalia found a spot that no one, note even teacher or nosy librarians went to. It was in between the reference sections and old encyclopedias, which were now outdated and inferior. She fell to the ground and hugged her knees to her chest, her eyes daring her to cry, but her will refusing.

She sat like that for a while, not wanting to move or even eat lunch. She wasn't sure whether to be sad or happy. She didn't even know why to feel either of those things, or if she had the right to feel those things.

"Natalia?" a gentle voice asked. Natalia's head shot up, embarrassed that she had been found in her sad state. Lukas was standing in front of her, blonde hair hanging in his face and cold blue eyes looking lifelike for once. And it wasn't his first time coming to save her when she was feeling down, she was starting to think that he had a way of knowing when she was upset.

"What's wrong?" he asked, not moving but staring down at her instead.

"Nothing," Natalia half-heartedly replied. Lukas didn't believe her, but bent a little bit and offered her a hand.

"Let's go talk about this somewhere," he suggested. And for once in her life, Natalia unconditionally complied.

They sat down against the brick wall of the school in the back. It was class time by now, but they didn't care. Once Natalia finished her story, Lukas stayed silent for a while. She wondered if he thought that she was becoming too obsessive over Alfred, like what had happened last year with Ivan… But she didn't want to think about that right now.

"So you're hurt?" Lukas phrased it as more of a question rather than a statement to sum it all up. He didn't quite understand why Natalia was so upset over someone like Alfred, who he still had his suspicions about the authenticity of their relationship anyway.

Natalia looked at him incredulously, or rather like he was stupid, and she became annoyed and short with him, "Yes,"

"So you like him then?" Lukas challenged, his calm expression never waning and ignoring Natalia's own annoyance.

Natalia blinked her eyes a few times and turned away, she wasn't quite sure how to answer that.

"Liked, I guess," she chose her words carefully, because she wasn't even sure if she had liked him in the first place. Since last year's events with Ivan, she wasn't so sure on what "like" meant anymore, and the word felt so foreign to her now.

"Did you like him as much as Ivan?" Lukas took a daring leap forward in the conversation, and Natalia wasn't sure if she wanted to go there, not now, at least. Should she deny it or try to explain herself? Lukas looked expectant.

"Look—last year was a mistake and I," she immediately closed her mouth. She didn't owe Lukas anything, nor did she want to explain herself to him. She didn't want to talk about the man who got her into this situation in the first place; the man who made her want to hide from everyone and lose her fire that was once so hard to put out.

Lukas understood her silence, knowing what he had heard about her from Matthias and Tino, who were always gossiping in front of him, thinking that he didn't care or wasn't paying attention. But it's funny how people act when they think that you're not listening nor taking in what they really have to say.

He nodded absentmindedly and looked to the puffy clouds in the sky. He decided that it might rain later on. Natalia followed his gaze and held her gaze fixated on the clouds. She always liked the clouds, and she used to say that one day she'd find a field in her old age and she'd watch the clouds until she died. But of course, she always wanted to go to Ivan's home and do that, because his home had beautiful views and a beautiful sky in the summer time, or so he said. But all of that was in the past now.

Thinking of Ivan made her heart heavy, so heavy in fact that she felt the need to lean her head on Lukas's shoulder, the latter of which didn't seem to mind or was so confused by it that he let her stay.

Alfred had to find Natalia, already the girls were getting crazy and asking why he wasn't with her. He decided that maybe if he apologized, and agreed to leave his girlfriend, who he really didn't have feelings for, but she did always bring him dinner, where his parents had cut him off for wanting to go to school in this town. Maybe if he told Natalia of his financial situation she'd understand and feed him instead?

It was simplistic and optimistic thinking, but Alfred was willing to take that chance for Natalia. Or for his own welfare and protection is what he told himself. It was after school, and he had been searching for Natalia in every nook and cranny since after lunch when he thought about it more. Natalia wasn't so horrible to be with anyway right? She wasn't much to look at that's for sure, but with it came its' perks, like he never had to worry about another guy trying to take her. He had heard from Matthias that Natalia used to be pretty, and that she had an obsessive side to her, none of which were too big of problems, except for maybe Natalia's obsessive streak.

He went outside to scan the building to look for Natalia by the soccer field or under the bleachers, or maybe in the dumpster… He stopped walking. Alfred knew how much Natalia liked hiding in corners, especially dark corners of closets. He decided to head for the back of the building near the dumpsters.

He rounded the corner and saw blonde hair, he almost yelled out when he saw it, but closed his mouth immediately once he saw that Natalia had no problem running to Lukas for help… Again. Alfred saw her leaning on Lukas, and Alfred realized for the first time what he was doing to her.

If Natalia really wanted to be with Lukas, then he should let her. Natalia always yelled at him anyway and acted like he was such a burden to be around. Alfred turned around and started to walk to the parking lot. He had read somewhere once that if you love something, you should let it go, and if it doesn't come back then it was never really yours in the first place.

Natalia was never really his, so he decided to let her go. Lukas seemed to make her happy in ways that Alfred couldn't do, even if he wanted to try, even if he realized that his dependence on her might be more than he thought, her happiness was important too.

He got into his old beat up truck and drove to his even more beat up apartment.


	7. Bonus Chapter

***Bonus Chapter:**

So I've gotten a lot of hate lately over my "out of character" story. Here's some of my favorite reviews:

**From: Guest**

Natalia is kind of out of character. I kind of expected her to bring out her  
oh great and powerful knife or punch Alfred. Or defend herself in some way.  
She's kind of a wimpy protagonist. She kind of like Canada in other words.

**From: Pichulover14 (Guest)**

Pichulover14:Everyone in here is so out of character! Matt is so brave and  
rebellious isn't he suppose to be a little shy. Natalia is like the diary of a  
wimpy or ugly betty. I kind of thought Matt and her had a personality swap.  
I'm really loving Lukas here. I'm on the sidelines cheering him on! (Go  
NorwayxBelarus!) And is Seychelles another main character? Alfred is a really  
big man slut it just makes me wanna choke him. I kind of expected him to be  
clueless, loving guy for Natalia. Tell me what you think.

First off, who's Matt? I only have Matthias in my story, and he's a minor character… So, to satisfy the knife throwing and Alfred choking and silence them once and for all, let's rewrite the first chapter and see how things would be different, shall we?

Natalia had a reputation for being a mean girl, and she loved Ivan Braginsky more than anything. She would follow him to the ends of the earth just to watch him for even an instant, one could say that she had an obsession.

Since she liked to be alone to her Ivan worshipping, she usually sat in the janitors closet alone. She thought of Ivan only, and how badly she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, if only he'd notice her for more than the scary girl that she was known for…

While sitting in the corner of the janitor's closet, a flash of light appeared, and two lovers stumbled in, already entangled in each other romantically. Natalia said nothing as Alfred and Elizabeta explored each other, she only looked on and hoped that her naturally intimidating aura would speak for itself.

As Elizabeta slipped out the door and Alfred waited until the coast was clear, he saw Natalia's shape in the corner, and felt her intimidating aura. He leaned in to see who was spying on them, but was greeted with a swift and accurate fist. Natalia stood up from her corner and glared at him, then she walked out.

Later that day, she was trying to get to Ivan's locker to greet him after class, but she saw Gilbert trying to argue with a laughing, carefree Alfred in front of his locker about Elizabeta. Feeling that Ivan's peace was being disturbed, she pushed past Alfred, who was leaning against a locker too close to Ivan's.

Alfred thought fast and grabbed Natalia's wrist, he laughed heartily, "This is my girlfriend Gilbert, didn't you know?"

Natalia glared at Alfred and puffed out her cheeks. She then reached into her back pocket and pulled out a switch blade, which she flung open almost as quickly as it appeared. She held the knife up to Alfred's throat, he gulped and tried to make a joke out of it.

"You can stop the joking now," he laughed uneasily.

Natalia pushed the knife closer to his throat, "Stop fucking with me, my heart only belongs to Ivan,"

Alfred immediately dropped her wrist and Natalia closed her knife, then she walked away to stand by Ivan's locker, and wait for him without fail. Although Ivan didn't come to his locker anymore, and Natalia had her suspicions that he had been using Ukraine's locker. She decided to pay her beloved sister a visit and demand to know what was going on.

Alfred watched Natalia walk away, stroking his throat where the knife was and vowing to never cross paths with her again. The rumors were true, she was a mean bitch.

And that ends the story. So really, what the fuck are you people saying? If the story is good, who cares about whether it's "out of character" or not. If you think you could write a better one and keep the plot line the same while using Himayura's outlandish and over the top personas, then go for it. But just keep in mind, Hetalia is a satire, and everything is over the top and overdone. If you think that Belarus would throw knives (in school mind you) then I dare you to write a story like mine. If you think that there's nothing more to a person than their obsession with another person, then write a story like mine.

So really it's very easy, stop taking a satire like Hetalia seriously and we can all enjoy _Noticeably Unnoticed: Hetalia _


	8. Chapter 7

**Since I received more criticism on my last bonus chapter (like what? I did what everyone wanted) I decided to write another one. Although I don't really want to… I just realized that my German test is this week and I need to get studying like I've never studied before! But just to clarify, Matthias and Matthew are two different people. ****Matthias**** is the human name for ****Denmark**** and ****Matthew**** is the human name for ****Canada****, the latter of which will not make an appearance in this story. **

"So you guys are done again?" Seychelles asked Natalia in history class the next day. Natalia didn't want to invite conversation with the carefree and talkative Seychelles so she just nodded.

"Who broke up with who?" Wy asked, piping in all smiles and curls. Natalia almost wanted to correct her grammar, but she didn't, because it meant talking to the girls. She just shrugged and pretended to write down what the teacher was saying, but of course she already knew almost everything in history class and could easily ace any history test without studying.

Wy frowned, "Come on, tell us! Was it him?" Natalia shook her head.

"Was it you?" Seychelles asked without skipping a beat. Natalia nodded her head slowly.

"Oh my God! What were you thinking? Alfred is so cute!" Wy chastised.

Seychelles waved Wy off, "Are you sure this time that you won't get back together with him?"

Natalia thought about it for a moment, and realized that if she said yes, the girls would stop bothering her. After all, they were only bothering her for information on Alfred. She nodded.

"Great! Well, I mean not great for you, hope you feel alright," Wy tried, although she was not sorry for Natalia's loss. After that, the two girls left Natalia alone, and Natalia wondered how Alfred was going to survive another attack from the school's population of girls.

After school Natalia went to retrieve her books from her locker. As she was searching for her Pre-Calculus book someone slammed into the locker next to hers. She looked up to see Matthias standing beside her, grinning down at her.

"So I heard you and Alfred had a falling out," the blonde boy with messy hair grinned down at her.

Natalia glared at him and continued searching through her locker, which always seemed to be messy because she haphazardly put books in her locker during passing period so as not to be late to her next class in the busy hallway.

"Come on Natalia, I was only joking!" Matthias's smile disappeared, but to Natalia's dismay Matthias himself didn't disappear, she decided to give him the silent treatment.

"So now you're after Lukas aren't you?" Matthias assumed, hoping to get a confession out of Natalia.

Natalia slammed her locker once she found her Pre-Calculus book in the top shelf, weird how she could never reach the top shelf, and yet her stuff always ended up there.

"I'm not after anyone," Natalia hissed, she started to walk away, as if walking away ever stopped the persistent males at school. Instead of Matthias following her, he reached out and grabbed her wrist before she could get too far. He yanked her back more forceful than intended and he was greeted by Natalia's never failing glare.

"Listen, don't get too close to Lukas. Like I said before, he has a strong sense of justice, he doesn't know the difference between liking someone and wanting to protect them. You'll just end up getting hurt," Matthias spoke softly his warning to her.

"Thanks, but I don't have feelings for Lukas and I never will," Natalia reassured him curtly.

"With the way you're running to him with all of your problems, I wouldn't be surprised if you did," Matthias retorted.

"I'm not running to him with my problems, he keeps finding me," Natalia said through clenched teeth.

"I remember you were the one always trying to find him not too long ago," Matthias fixed his gaze on her and watched as Natalia's facial expression changed into that of mortification. Once he figured that he had cornered Natalia he let go of her wrist.

"Well thanks for letting me borrow your homework, I'll see you tomorrow," Matthias spoke cheerfully and loudly, so that way no one would think he came over to Natalia to deliver his warning. Natalia walked out of the school quickly to go home to hide under her covers out of embarrassment of what Matthias knew. On the other hand, Matthias went to meet Tino at the other end of the hallway.

"Did you talk to her?" Tino asked once Matthias reached him. The two started walking together to find Lukas and ask for a ride home, because Matthias totaled his car when it slipped on ice and he ran into a guard rail and Tino never had a car to begin with.

"Yeah, I don't think she'll be bothering Lukas anymore," Matthias replied.

"Good, because you know how Lukas gets," Tino replied nodding his head at Matthias.

"I do, I just hope that he's not confused again. He's really got to stop trying to save everyone," Matthias sighed and rolled his eyes. They eventually found Lukas coming out of the math room, where he usually spent a few minutes after school asking for help.

"Hey Lukas! Want to give us a ride home?" Matthias asked with a goofy smile.

Lukas sighed and shook his head, "I can't do that today. Go ask Berwald,"

"You mean Sve?" Tino asked. He and Berwald were friends, but sometimes Berwald scared him, and car rides with him were awkward and intimidating. Lukas looked at Tino and shook his head up and down, Tino in return shook his head madly.

"I'd rather not," Tino told Lukas.

Matthias stood in front of Lukas and blocked his path. "Why can't you anyway? Where are you going?"

Lukas said nothing but stared up at Matthias with an icy stare.

"You couldn't be trying to find Natalia could you?" Tino chimed in. Lukas said nothing, but kept staring down Matthias.

"Lukas, do you like her?" Matthias challenged, not once breaking the stare. Lukas's silence was an answer enough for Matthias and he broke eye contact with Lukas and took a step back.

"Okay, well good luck with that then," Matthias smiled, trying to avoid a confrontation with Lukas. "But we still need rides home," Matthias added. Lukas sighed and started to walk to his locker, seemingly forgetting about finding Natalia for the time being.

"Well that seemed to work," Tino whispered to Matthias as they followed Lukas.

"Yeah for now, but we've got to try to get Natalia away from him," Matthias whispered back.

Natalia dug up an old scrap book from the top of her closet and sat down on her bed to look at it. In the pictures from her youth she saw a young Ukraine staring up at her and a young Ivan wearing the scarf that Ukraine had given him all those years ago.

As she turned more and more pages in the scrap book she finally found the pictures of her and Lukas. When they were younger, they were good friends. They had met when Natalia approached him at recess one day and saw that he was sitting by himself, she asked if he wanted to kick the ball with her, and he shook his head.

Instead of taking no for an answer, she decided to sit next to him. They became friends when Lukas had none, but pretty soon Lukas met Tino, Berwald, and Matthias. He stopped talking to her, and she kept thinking that they were friends. The kids in class made fun of her for chasing Lukas around all the time and claiming them to still be friends, and Matthias bringing up her history of chasing Lukas only added to her embarrassment.

She was starting to think that she always had a problem with letting go, especially of people.

"Thanks for the ride Lukas!" Tino sang as he crawled out of the back seat and raced up his drive way. Lukas and Matthias were left in the car, and Matthias decided that it was a good time to tell him about Natalia.

"So I talked to Natalia today," Matthias began as Lukas pulled away from the curb of Tino's house. Matthias watched as Lukas's body tensed and his hands gripped the steering wheel.

"What did she say?" Lukas skipped ahead in the conversation. He knew Matthias well enough to know where this was going.

Matthias reached to adjust the radio station, "She just said that she didn't have feelings for you and never would," he replied nonchalantly.

"Why are you telling me this?" Lukas quickly replied. His hands were still squeezing the steering wheel madly, and his foot was pressed so hard on the accelerator that they were going well over the speed limit of a neighborhood.

"Just thought you would want to know," Matthias smiled, trying to avoid Lukas's anger. Lukas said nothing in return but stared angrily at the road.

When Lukas finally pulled up to Matthias's house the tension in the car was thick. Matthias grabbed his backpack from the floor of the backseat and he thanked Lukas for the ride before sliding out of the passenger seat.

Lukas peeled away from Matthias's house once Matthias got out. He told himself that he only wanted to protect Natalia and make sure that Alfred wouldn't walk all over her anymore, but why was he so angry and hurt that Natalia told Matthias never had feelings for him and never would? Couldn't she at least say it to his face?

Maybe she wasn't the same girl that he knew when they were younger.

**More clarification: ****Berwald**** and ****Sve ****are human names for ****Sweden****. ****Tino**** is the human name for ****Finland****.**


	9. Chapter 8

** I need more drama. Let's do this.**

"I heard some girls talking when I was fixing my hair in the bathroom today," Wy began. She was whispering over Natalia to Seychelles, who was listening intently while trying to feign paying attention to the history lesson.

"One girl said that she was pregnant," Wy whispered, giving Seychelles a side glance.

"And what's so new about that?" Seychelles rolled her eyes towards the board and immediately became disinterested.

"That's the thing—_was_ pregnant," Wy emphasized. "When her friends asked, she said that she slept with Lukas,"

"Oh my God she didn't! Who was she?" Seychelles asked in a hushed tone, her interested peaked again. Consequently, Natalia's interested was peaked as well, she wanted to know what they meant by "was pregnant".

"I don't know, some freshmen I'm sure, you know how the those four like them young," Wy replied. Those four? It had to have been Matthias, Berwald, Tino and Lukas.

"Did she like get an abortion or something? Because those guys always have ways of convincing girls," Seychelles inquired, begging for more information.

"You know none of them are really big on using birth control," Wy shook her head in a "what can you do?" manor.

"Well I knew that much, but how can they convince all the girls not to keep their babies? That's what always gets me," Seychelles wasn't even trying to hide her lack of paying attention anymore, this rumor seemed too pressing.

"I'm sure it's because they're all scary and come from really powerful families," Wy deduced.

"Well, at least another girl won't drop out of high school," Seychelles replied, as if the rumored loss of a baby were nothing.

Natalia looked at her notes, but was not studying them. Instead her mind was on Lukas, how could he dictated which girls kept their babies and which didn't? How could he have that kind of power? Was there another side to him that she didn't know? The bell rung and she rushed out of class.

Natalia shoved through the hoard of people to her locker, she wanted Lukas to show up so that she could confront him, but she didn't know how she could confront him. She didn't want to cause a scene after the events of last year. After she had retrieved all of her books, she closed her locker and leaned up against it, her eyes were scanning the crowd for Lukas.

Once she had found a group of blonde haired boys, she knew that one of them had to be Lukas. But what she saw almost shocked her, a young girl, probably only a freshmen or sophomore was holding his hand, and clearly hanging on every word she said. Natalia, shocked, decided to abandon going to class and instead go to the library. Although her next class was math, and she knew that she would for sure get caught skipping, it was well worth it. She had to think. Just when she thought that Lukas was going back to his old self, he completely turns into his old self.

Natalia wandered the rows of books and eventually decided to sit down at a table in the back, which was mostly hidden by books anyway. She sat down at the wooden table and opened up her AP Statistics book and decided to read up on the next lesson. If push came to shove she could get help after school and claim sickness for her absence. She could explain that she vomited in the bathroom, that was always a for sure ticket home and an excellent excuse.

She tried to read the lesson, but her mind kept going back to what Seychelles and Wy said. She knew that she shouldn't start believing rumors of all things, but she still wanted to know what amount of truth was in that rumor, if any. She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost didn't hear someone pull out the chair across from her and sit in it.

"Natalia?" a voice asked. She whipped her head up to meet the familiar blue eyes of Alfred.

"A-Alfred?" Natalia asked, shocked that she was even talking to her. She pushed up her glasses.

Alfred smiled, "How have you been? So much as happened to me since the last time that we talked! Like me and my girlfriend broke up, and then I got a job—well kind of and then—" Natalia held up her hand.

"Alfred I seriously don't want to hear it," she returned to her book. She was still hurt over Alfred having a girlfriend when she was pretending to be his, but she wasn't sure why she was hurt anymore. It wasn't like she liked him… right?

Alfred cocked his head to the side, "What's wrong? You're still not mad about what happened? You have Lukas,"

The blood rushed to Natalia's head when Alfred said Lukas's name. "I don't have Lukas, we were never a thing," she mumbled.

Alfred laughed heartily, and much too loud for the library; Natalia nearly jumped out of her chair at his unexpected loud laugh.

"Shut up!" she chastised him, looking around for spiteful librarians mad that they couldn't become real teachers and instead had to work in the library. After all, no one ever aspires to be a librarian.  
Alfred looked at her confused, "What? The librarians are so old that they can barely hear… Anyway! I thought you and Lukas were a thing, you guys spend so much time together that it sure looked like it,"

"No, haven't you seen his new girlfriend?" Natalia swallowed hard when she admitted aloud that Lukas had a new girlfriend.

"No I haven't! Is she cute?" Alfred asked, completely ignoring—or not noticing—her obvious emotional state.

Natalia thought back to the young girl that was holding an uninterested Lukas's hand. She tried to picture her face, with her perky brown curls and dark brown eyes shining and excited to have an upperclassmen paying attention to her. She supposed that the girl was cute, and it wouldn't make sense for Natalia to state otherwise. She could admit defeat in the beauty department, even from an underclassmen.

"Yes, I think so," Natalia honestly said.

"We'll have to go look for her! Matthias never told me that Lukas had a girlfriend, must be a new thing," Alfred happily chatted. _Or an unexpected thing_, Natalia mentally added, thinking back to the rumors about Lukas. She didn't know what hurt worse, knowing that Lukas was screwing around with underclassmen or the fact that she thought he had changed.

"Yeah, looks like that," Natalia quietly added, realizing that if she stopped talking to Alfred he would leave and she'd be alone. It was hard to admit, even to herself in secret, but she missed Alfred's constant attention on her.

"Wow, it's really good to finally talk to you again," Alfred beamed, shooting her one of his sincere smiles.

"Y-Yeah, you too," Natalia staggered out a reply.

"So are you here ditching class too?" Alfred asked, leaned back in his chair and looking around.

"Yup, didn't feel like going to AP Stats I guess," she lied. But really, she wanted to come here and think, but Alfred was a pleasant distraction from her thinking.

Alfred laughed loudly again, "Yeah I wouldn't either!" his face suddenly went serious. "So does that mean you can go back to being my girlfriend now?"

Natalia blinked her eyes at his ridiculous request. Should she say yes? Should she say no? Instead, she said the first thing that popped into her head.

"Yes," she blurted out. She put a hand over her mouth after the words had come out and hit the air.

Alfred smiled, "Great! So now these girls can get off my back again!" he stood up and put a hand on her shoulder. "You're a great friend Natalia," he then walked off. She wasn't sure where he was going, because it was the middle of the class period, but she decided not to follow.

After school she once again returned to her locker. She found it difficult to focus on AP Stats in a time like this, so she returned her book to her locker and searched around for Alfred. With Lukas obviously busy with his new girlfriend and Alfred busy being his usual happy self somewhere without her, she felt lonely. But of course, lonely is what she wanted in the first place, she just didn't know that it'd hurt so badly.

She waited for about ten minutes, and the hallway had long since cleared by then. She realized that Alfred wasn't coming for her, and that things weren't the same anymore. Natalia also realized that Lukas wasn't coming for her either, and that she may never know the extent of the rumors that were circulating about him.

Natalia walked to her car alone.

**Not my best chapter… And yes I know, people feel differently on abortion. Don't comment about it because I don't care what you have to say, I tried to write it as unbiased as possible while getting my point across for the sake of the story itself. I seriously. Don't. Care. About. Your. Opinion. On. Abortion. Okay?**


	10. Chapter 9

**So first starters, I passed my German test! (whoo!) second off, I jammed my finger doing something stupid T-T typing has never been harder! A word for all the cheerleaders out there: if you haven't thrown a round off back handspring in about a year and a half, don't do it! Get a spot! *trying to relive the glory days T-T***

Once again, Natalia was rifling through her backpack trying to find her car keys. She always made a mental note to put them on a lanyard, but she always forgot when she got home. She sighed and put her backpack on the top of her car. But as she looked up, she caught a glimpse of Matthias waving to a group of girls and walking towards his car. Natalia looked at the car now in front of her. It was Matthias's car.

Her search for her keys became even more desperate, she didn't want Matthias to know that she was hurt beyond belief about Lukas, and that everyone had abandoned her. It truly is a sad when you wake up and realize that everyone is over you, and you're not quite over them. Natalia was feeling the effects of that realization all too much today, and she just wanted to get away. But of course, Matthias walked up before she could find her elusive keys.

"Hey Natalia," Matthias cheerfully waved at her as he neared his car. He was greeted with an icy glare of Natalia.

"What's wrong Natalia?" Matthias seemingly innocently asked, although he knew damned well what was wrong. Natalia said nothing, but kept glaring.

Matthias put a hand on the back of his neck and rubbed it uneasily, "Aw, don't tell me you're upset about Lukas and his new girlfriend!"

Natalia shook her head incredulously and she returned to her now frantic search for her keys. If she dropped them somewhere, she would walk home and get them tomorrow. Matthias wasn't even worth it anymore.

Matthias walked to her car and leaned over the top to meet Natalia's face. He held out a pair of keys, "Looking for these?" he faked a smile and kept his ominous cheery manor.

Natalia lunged over the top of her car and grabbed for the keys, but Matthias pulled them back and held them next to him. He wagged his index finger, "Whoa, not so fast. You dropped these and I was just returning them to you. After we have a chat of course," his stupid smile was still plastered to his face. Natalia looked around at her surroundings and realized that her dropping her keys wasn't a very likely story, and that it seemed all too convenient that Matthias would park right next to her when the parking lot was rarely ever full.

"Bullshit," she challenged, staring at her keys then turning to give him a challenging glare.

"Hey, hey, let's not use foul language okay?" Matthias shook the keys as if to show Natalia that he now had her stuck, and she had to listen to whatever he said.

"What the fuck do you want?" Natalia purposefully used foul language as if to provoke him, and Matthias's ever present smile faltered a bit.

"Didn't I just say—" Matthias sighed and dropped the keys to his side. He couldn't keep this up any longer, and once again he'd piss Natalia off with his words. He leaned against her car; Natalia scrunched her nose in distaste at his body pressed up against her car.

"Listen, don't come near Lukas anymore," he said with all seriousness.

"Done," Natalia quickly replied, she reached vainly for her keys in his grubby little hands.

Matthias wagged his finger again, "I thought you had more patience than that Natalia,"

"I don't have patience for bastards trying to keep girls from leaving," she crossed her arms and tapped her foot.

"Once again with the name calling," Matthias muttered through a sigh. "Okay, so I guess we have to do this the hard way," he leaned over the car and came close to her face.

"I know about you and Alfred's fake relationship. If you interfere with Lukas and his girlfriend's relationship, I will tell everyone that you threw yourself at Alfred and begged to be his girlfriend," Matthias threatened in a hushed tone. Natalia was taken aback at his threat, not because Alfred would be exposed and she couldn't protect him anymore, but because he so cleverly added in the last bit about begging to be Alfred's girlfriend, and it brought back memories from her last school year.

"Go to hell," Natalia told him once she came to her senses. She now decided that she would not listen to Matthias's threat, and that she would call his bluff, if he were bluffing at all.

Matthias shook his head, "If I were you, I'd listen to my warning, but it's not my choice. Just know that you'll be sorry if you don't," he tossed her her keys and she just barely caught them. He turned away and opened his car door, just as he was getting in Natalia finally found her voice.

"Hey," Natalia called. Matthias looked up at her expectantly. "Fuck you," she spit with venom.

Matthias smiled and waved, "It was nice talking to you Natalia! I hope we can do it again sometime," he said mostly for show, so as to not raise any suspicion of anyone around.

Natalia made a face at him and when he backed out and pulled away she stuck her middle finger high in the air after him. He caught her on the wrong day and she really wasn't in the mood for his empty threats. She unlocked her car and got into the driver's seat. She knew exactly where she was going, and it wasn't to her home.

She knocked on the door, not once, but twice. The person inside either seemed to be asleep, not home, or lazy. But Natalia knew this person, and it was probably a mixture of both. She shoved the toe of her Ugg boot into the door and kicked it hard three times, patience wearing thin.

The door slowly creaked open, "What?" asked a lazy voice. Alfred was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes when his eyes finally focused on Natalia.

"Bad time?" Natalia asked shifting her weight from foot to foot. She wasn't sure why she felt this nervous, probably because she saw Alfred's girlfriend last time at this very place.

"No, you're good. Come in," Alfred half-heartedly replied, still obviously dazed from slumber. Natalia walked in and took a seat on the very used and old couch, she wondered where his mother was and why she wasn't cleaning up the mess that was scattered everywhere.

"So what is it that you need?" he asked, sitting down on a beat up recliner catty corner from Natalia.

"I just came to visit, and see how you were doing," Natalia told him. But really, she wasn't sure why she was there; maybe she was just hoping to feel like Alfred liked her, even though their relationship was dubbed a fake by both parties.

Alfred cocked his head to the side, "Is that it really?" he asked. He seemed to be more alert after a nap, Natalia made a mental note of this.

She hesitated, and Alfred took this opportunity to smirk, knowing that her intentions were well past him by now.

"What's the reason Natalia?" Alfred pried, adjusting his position in his seat.

"I-I just," the words wouldn't come out, because she didn't have any. She just felt like this was the place to be, and she had to stop herself from going over to Lukas's house to tell him of all her problems. Maybe Lukas was just too kind to her, and he saw her as a charity case.

Alfred leaned forward and smirked, obviously happy with himself for backing Natalia up into a verbal corner. "Is it Lukas and his new girlfriend?"

Natalia's eyes widened when Alfred uttered those words. She apparently didn't know herself enough to know how upset she truly was about Lukas's new girlfriend, and his apparent malevolence.

Alfred smiled widely this time, "I knew it! I saw him with that other girl and I knew that you'd be mad about it,"

Natalia glared at him, "I'm not mad," she protested.

"Then jealous, whatever, point is, I was right!" Alfred beamed. Natalia had to use all of her self control not to punch him in the face at that very moment.

"I'm not jealous either," Natalia protested in vain.

"Then why did you look so sad in the library?" Alfred challenged without skipping a beat.

"I-I wasn't," Natalia replied frustrated and flustered. She turned to look at her hands and avoid eye contact with Alfred, who seemed to be very in tune with his surroundings today.

"Don't be upset Natalia, she's an underclassmen anyway," Alfred tried his hand at consoling her, but he only made things worse.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Natalia quietly asked, mainly to herself rather than Alfred. She was giving into Alfred, and he was loving it.

"Lukas can't like her if she's an underclassmen," Alfred leaned back in his chair and stretched towards the ceiling.

"Yes he can," Natalia admitted in defeat.

"Nah, I'm pretty sure Matthias had something to do with this one," Alfred absently said. It wasn't like he had anything to do with Lukas and this young girl's relationship, but he knew enough about his friend to know when a trail smelled like him.

"What do you mean?" Natalia asked with too much hope.

"Whoa, slow down. You're my girlfriend remember?" Alfred joked, he laughed at his joke, but Natalia stared at him stone cold. Once he noticed her lack of laughter, he leaned forward once again. "Anyway, I just know when something sounds like Matthias,"

Natalia sighed, she couldn't very well confront Matthias an account of a feeling. "Okay," was all she could find to say.

Alfred stood up and clapped a hand over her shoulder, "Don't worry about it Natalia. If you keep worrying about everything you're always going to be worrying," Alfred reasoned. Natalia thought on his words for a minute, and realized that there was some truth in his madness.

"You're right," she gave in. Alfred smiled, pleased with himself and Natalia's new found respect for him, or what he thought was respect.

He leaned down and kissed her cheek, "Glad you see things my way. Now if you could leave so I could continue napping, that'd be great," Alfred said with a smile. Natalia was dazzled by his kiss and yet she wanted to punch him for that last bit.

"Fine, go nap, I'll leave once I figure some things out," Natalia told him. She wasn't sure if she had the right to stay in Alfred's house after basically coming over unannounced, but Alfred just shrugged and went to his bedroom. He was asleep within minutes and Natalia could hear him snoring.

She wondered why Matthias would have anything to do with Lukas dating some stupid—and admittedly pretty—underclassmen. But maybe he could have made good on his threats as well. Natalia wasn't sure if Matthias was an evil mastermind that he was now coming into light to be, or if Alfred was completely off and Lukas really was happy with his girlfriend.

Natalia looked around at the dust in the corners and the pile of dirty dishes in Alfred's apartment. She decided to do something nice for him and clean his house while he was asleep, after all, she didn't want to feel as if she owed him anything for that kiss.

Much to her dismay, Alfred was now becoming her best ally in this war of uncertainty and series of unfortunate events.


	11. Chapter 10

Natalia had spent a lot of time at Alfred's house in the past week. She always seemed to be over at his house after school or sleeping over Friday night and then again Saturday night. True, she was still hurt over Lukas's treachery, but since her and Alfred had learned to genuinely like each other, she noticed it less.

Once again, she was over at Alfred's house for the evening and she was doing her history homework while watching TV with him.

"Don't you ever stop working?" Alfred asked. He put his feet on the coffee table and still left his math book untouched.

"No, not until my homework is done I don't," Natalia answered. She glanced up at the TV and saw Alfred was watching baseball. She scrunched her nose and thumbed through her history book.

"I feel like all you ever do while your over is do your homework," Alfred complained, not taking his eyes off the TV screen.

"And clean, don't forget that I clean for you," she mumbled. A sudden thought came to her mind. "Hey Alfred, where are you parents?"

Alfred turned from the screen to her, his initial expression gave him away before he could change it. "Not here," he replied nonchalantly.

Natalia narrowed her eyes skeptically at him, seeing through his façade. "Where are they then?"

"They just work and they pay my rent to live here," Alfred told her, still in a nonchalant manner although she knew that there was more to the story.

"Alright," she sighed. She didn't feel like delving into his life story today when there was homework to be done.

"Yeah! My team is winning!" Alfred cheered suddenly.

Natalia looked up at him through her glasses, "Whatever,"

Natalia was walking down the hallway to her next class. She was weaving in and out of people trying to navigate through the busy hallway and the nuisance of people who stop to talk to friends. As she walked past a big group of people talking, a hand reached out to grab her arm. She whirled around to meet whose hand was on her arm.

"What do you want?" she practically spat at Lukas. He said nothing but pulled her by her arm to the end of the hallway, far from where Natalia needed to be for her class. She yanked her arm away from his grasp and then she took a step back to challenge him with her glare.

Lukas opened his mouth to speak, but upon seeing Natalia's expression he closed it again. He stared into her eyes and tried to think of what to do, especially because he had ignored her for the past week while trying to deal with his "girlfriend."

"I'm sorry," he finally decided on.

Natalia shot him an incredulous look, "I'm sure you are," she rolled her eyes for effect at the end.

"I am," he insisted. It wasn't like him to be so persistent and talkative, but he felt that he needed to be at this point.

"Oh so now you're for brushing me off when all I ever wanted to be was your friend? What about those rumors of you making girls—" she stopped abruptly. She couldn't bear to say it.

Lukas stared into her eyes, curious as to what she would say and wondering if he wanted to know at all. He wanted to say something to convey to her how he was feeling, and how sorry he was. Sorry that he let Matthias influence him, and sorry that he had treated her like an alien and essentially became what he didn't want to be. He saw his actions as something that Alfred would do, and to him that was unforgiveable. And still, he wondered where he could find the words to tell her.

Finding nothing to convey his feelings of genuine repentance to her, he made a rash choice. He grabbed her face roughly with both of his hands and he kissed her just as roughly. He pulled away quickly and took a step back, Natalia's eyes widened in response.

"What the hell?" the quietly said. Lukas didn't speak, but he stared at her, waiting for either retaliation or something to

"What the hell?!" she practically yelled. She walked towards him and slapped him as hard as she could across the face. Lukas didn't move, nor move a hand over his face, he just stared into her eyes, as if that could take her anger away. Natalia's world was spinning and she was finding it hard to breathe, she shook her head at Lukas and all but ran in the other direction to go to her class.

She hardly paid attention in Physics that day, all that she could think about was Lukas, and how he kissed her but she was almost positive that he still had that little underclassmen of a girlfriend. She wondered if Lukas even liked his supposed girlfriend, and if the rumors about him were true.

"Hey Natalia," Seychelles said as she sauntered into class late and sat next to Natalia. Natalia's guard immediately went up, because Seychelles didn't seem like the type of girl to talk to someone like Natalia because she "wanted" to.

"Hi," Natalia flatly responded. She was hoping that that'd be the end of their conversation, but it appeared that Seychelles had other plans.

"So you and Alfred just can't decide if you're on or off can you?" Seychelles giggled. It was not in a mean way, but so as to suggest companionship between the two.

"I guess," Natalia flatly replied once more. She wondered why Seychelles was fishing around for information, or why she'd even sit next to her during this period if she didn't have to.

"Well you guys make a great couple," Seychelles smiled as she pulled out her physics book.

"Thanks?" Natalia replied more as a question than an answer.

Seychelles looked into Natalia's icy blue eyes and then sighed, "I'm not all that bad you know, I'm really trying here Natalia,"

Natalia blinked her eyes a few times. She wasn't sure if she could trust what Seychelles said, or if Seychelles wasn't a bad person like she claimed to be.

"Okay," Natalia managed to say.

"Natalia, one day you're going to scare away everyone who ever cared about you," Seychelles scolded with an exasperated sigh as she turned to her notebook.

Natalia thought for a second, then smiled, "Don't you know that that's the plan?"

Natalia was waiting for Alfred in the courtyard outside so that he could take her to his house again after school. She had slept over once again at his house last night and he gave her a ride to school in the morning. She hated to admit it, to herself or otherwise, but she was starting to enjoy the company of the crazy brunette boy.

"Natalia!" a cheerful voice shouted. Natalia returned a little smile to the approaching brunette boy with a loud personality.

"Should we go now?" he asked once he reached her. Natalia nodded fell into step with him as he led her to his car.

"Alfred!" another voice shouted. Natalia clenched her teeth at the sound of this voice. She turned around to meet the owner of the voice with a look that could kill.

"Matthias! We haven't talked in forever buddy! How's it been going?" Alfred cheerfully replied. Matthias approached them before they could make it to the parking lot, Natalia mentally cursed him for it.

"Good! How about you? I see you've still got that girlfriend of yours," Matthias nodded to Natalia with an innocent smile. She made a face at him and Matthias raised an eyebrow at her before returning to Alfred, who was oblivious to the whole thing.

"Yeah," he put an arm around Natalia and pulled her in to him. "Just can't get enough of her you know?"

Natalia's heart skipped a beat when he said that, especially because she knew that with her low pigtails, gray sweater, leggings, and glasses she wasn't much to look at. But still, just imagining that maybe Alfred would be interested in her was a nice thought to think about.

"Really?" Matthias dropped the smile and gave Alfred a surprised look. "Don't you know who else can't get enough of her?"

"Who?" Alfred's smile faded and he looked at Matthias with curious worry.

"Didn't you hear about her and Lukas today?" Matthias cocked his head to the side with a fake shock that Natalia knew was devious. If her mouth wasn't hanging open at this very moment and she was shut up from shock, she probably would have punched him in the jaw.

"No?" Alfred unsteadily replied.

"Oh, well you should ask her. I gotta go but I'll see you later!" Matthias waved quickly and then ran off to his car. Alfred turned to look at Natalia clearly.

"Natalia, what happened?" Alfred asked, his face growing sad and bracing himself for what was to come.

"Look—I—uh, we…" she stumbled, trying to find the words. She saw the look on his face, and wondered if she owed him an explanation at all, but his expression begged her to continue. "He kissed me," she blurted out.

"And you let him?" Alfred asked, as if she wanted Lukas to kiss her in the first place.

"I didn't _let _it happen, he just-!" Natalia popped off on Alfred. She was growing angry of trying to explain herself when they weren't actually _dating_ in the first place. Alfred shook his head and started to walk to his car.

"I thought you were better than that," he said over his shoulder as he pulled out his car keys.

"I—I—" she tried to find the words to explain her frustration. "I don't owe you an explanation! I don't owe you anything! We're not even together so it doesn't even matter!" Natalia exploded after him.

Alfred turned around and shrugged, "You're right, I don't owe you anything," he replied calmly.

"God damn Alfred! It wasn't my fault! Why won't you listen?!" Natalia was still yelling after him like a crazy person, but Alfred paid no mind. He waved her off and kept walking down the row of cars to find his car.

"Fuck you! I don't need you!" Natalia screamed after him, but Alfred was either too far to hear or too upset to want to hear.

Natalia watched as he sped out of the parking lot, leaving her without a ride and with no place to go. Except for home. But she didn't feel like going there. Instead she sat on the curb and pulled her knees up to her chest. She was right, she didn't owe him anything, and he was also right, he didn't owe her anything. Why was it that after things were going so well he has to act like that? She felt like everything always went straight to hell.

A car pulled up in front of her and stopped. "Natalia," the voice called.

She looked up.


	12. Chapter 11

Natalia met a cold blue eyed gaze, the gaze that had caused her so much trouble already, and somehow she couldn't get away from. He knew how and where to find her in her darkest moments. Although she wasn't spending much time anymore in the janitor's closet…

He stared at her expectantly, half expecting her to say no, half expecting her to say yes. Natalia thought for a moment, then got up and pulled open the passenger door and hopped in. Lukas didn't speak a word but started to drive off, very quickly and recklessly to the exit of the parking lot. It was some time before Natalia realized that he had no intention of taking her home, because he was crossing the final stoplight before merging onto the highway.

"Lukas," Natalia started. She didn't know exactly what to say to him, or where to begin, but the deafening silence was killing her. Lukas didn't reply, but rather waited for her to speak. She broke under his silence. "I have to know, are the rumors true?" she practically jumped out of her seat as she carelessly blurted out what she was feeling.

Lukas weighed his options, but Natalia mistook this for him not knowing what she was talking about. "It's about some girl being preg—" Lukas held up his hand to stop her.

"I know, and yes." Lukas confessed to her. Natalia put a hand over her mouth and looked out the window. She wasn't sure where they were going, but she didn't care.

"Why?" she whispered after she watched mile markers on the side of the road pass in a blur. Lukas said nothing, but sighed and shook his head. Natalia was fine with this answer, she didn't want his explanation, she needed to let it all sink in.

"Are you mad?" Lukas asked after a long pause. He changed lanes and turned right onto an exit.

Natalia shook her head, "I just don't know what to think," Lukas wanted to tell her that is wasn't at all like she thought it was, that he didn't even demand that girls he got pregnant got abortions, he was just caught up in some things. But he wondered if he could tell her at this moment, or if he even had the words to tell her. He decided that letting her hate him was the best decision. He drove over the bridge on the highway and merged onto the highway going the opposite direction from which they came.

Natalia bit her bottom lip, trying to figure out something to say to him. She had a lot that she wanted to say, but none of it seemed right. She chose silence of all virtues, and she hoped that Lukas would take her home, but the tension and uneasiness in the car made it clear that she wasn't going home for a while.

"Please take me home now," Natalia straightened up in her chair. She wasn't sure if Lukas would comply, or if she even wanted to go home at the moment.

"Okay," Lukas finally said. He had every intention to take her home, but he had to get off the highway first.

"So what's with your new girlfriend?" Natalia asked him rudely. She was angry that Lukas would get some new girlfriend, an underclassmen of all people, and leave her in the dust.

Lukas shrugged, "What about her?" he replied in a monotone. He didn't want to tell Natalia that he didn't even like his girlfriend, it's just that she… He couldn't even think about it. But he knew that somehow he had to tell her.

"Natalia, about my girlfriend— she—" he rushed carelessly out. Natalia held up her hand.

"I know about your girlfriend," Natalia bit back, Lukas was starting to irritate her, although she was trying to keep her cool. Lukas shut up, and figured if she knew about his girlfriend, then she must know why he had to date her. That means that she couldn't and shouldn't be mad at him… So why was she?

"Lukas, you do some pretty shitty things you know. You're just like Alfred," Natalia crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Lukas. Lukas wasn't sure what he had done, or if they were even on the same page anymore. He decided it best to resort back to silence because he wasn't sure what she was talking about.

"Alfred used all of these girls—especially me, and that's exactly what you're doing!" Natalia clenched her teeth, took a deep breath, and began to speak again.

"What the hell is wrong with you? You're not even the same Lukas I knew when we were kids! Is it Matthias? He's such an asshole! I knew he'd do this to you, he's always been an ass and always will be," she took another deep breath. "God damn Lukas, why can't you just stop using people?!" she burst. Of course there was no basis for her logic on Lukas using anybody, but perhaps she was so angry at Alfred at this point that she saw Lukas as Alfred.

"And furthermore—" Lukas cut her off, it was his turn now.

"You always go back and forth from Alfred to me, so who's really using people?" Lukas tried his hand at speaking up for himself, and it succeeded. Natalia stopped her a moment and stared at him in disbelief.

"You just can't keep running from Alfred to me when things don't work out, it's time to choose now," Lukas wasn't exactly mad at her, and he tried to reflect his emotion in the tone of his voice, but no matter how hard he tried he ended up sounding cold no matter what.

Natalia kept staring at him, soaking in what he just said. In a certain aspect, he was right. She had to choose either Alfred or Lukas, she couldn't have both anymore. Just like Lukas couldn't have both his girlfriend and Natalia. Things didn't work that way, and Natalia had to choose, there was no running anymore.

"Take me the fuck home," she ordered him instead of telling him all that was going on in her mind at the moment. It wasn't like Lukas wasn't taking her home already though, he was already two blocks away from her house, Natalia just didn't have an answer for him. Not now at least.

When Lukas finally pulled up to her driveway she almost leaped out of the car before it even stopped. She didn't thank Lukas for the ride, she didn't talk to him again after that, she just needed to think. She raced all too quickly for the front door, and Lukas waited until the door slammed shut and she was inside before sighing and putting his car out of park. But as if on cue, his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and saw who it was. He sighed an exasperated sigh and opened the phone.

"What do you want?" he asked.

A cheerful feminine voice on the other end giggled, "That's no way to greet your girlfriend silly!"

"What do you want?" Lukas asked again, glaring out his windshield angrily.

"Lukas, you have to be nice to me. Or else we could do something that would hurt Natalia again," she replied, feigning innocence.

"Fine," he simply said. He didn't want to bring Natalia into this anymore, he hated the fact that Alfred always hurt him enough himself but he also hated that Alfred's presence in Natalia's life was making her subjected to bullying.

"Good choice Lukas. So would you mind coming over? It'll only be for a while," she flirted. Lukas sighed and switched his car into drive. He was speeding in the direction of her house, only to get this little visit over with.

"I'm on my way now Laura," he told her a little less than friendly.

"Great, I can't wait to see you!" she giggled in reply. Lukas hung up, not wanting to return the "I can't wait to see you either!" because that's not at all how he felt. He wished that he didn't have to date Laura, and that he didn't care so darn much about protecting Natalia from Alfred. He wasn't sure if he was trying to protect her because he felt sorry for her, or if it was something else...

Natalia was on her bed, laying face up and staring at the ceiling. Lukas was right, she had to make a decision, but it wasn't that simple. Alfred had called her about three times that night and begged her to come back over to his house, and Lukas called her not at all. She felt as if she wasn't getting much done just by laying on her bed and waiting for the answer to come to her. She sent Alfred a quick text and went down the stairs to go to the garage to drive to his house.

When she finally made it to his sad excuse for an apartment she knocked on the door three times, then she took a step back and waited. She heard hurried footsteps on the inside rush to the door. The door swung open and hit the inside wall, Alfred wasted no time in pulling Natalia into his arms.

"I'm so sorry about today, please don't leave me," he whispered into her long blonde hair. Natalia slowly and unsurely wrapped her arms around him and patted his back. She couldn't help but feel weird about his words, he acted like they were actually dating, and like she had actually left him. But none of that happened, because they weren't dating. They were two friends—at best—who decided to use each other to get rid of their problems.

"Um Alfred, you're squeezing me too tight and it's freezing out here," she shakily told him. Alfred nodded against her hair and pulled away from her, he motioned for her to go inside and she followed. He closed the door behind her.

"So I see not much has changed in the twenty four hours that I wasn't here," she tried to crack a joke, but Alfred seemed so shaken up that it didn't work on him. Unusual for him because normally he would've laughed or made a joke at how bad her humor is.

Natalia bit her lip uncomfortably and she made her way over the old beat up couch in the living room. Alfred followed her and sat down next to her, she pulled her knees up to her chest and looked at the TV. Alfred was watching some sports game that he usually watched, and Natalia felt at ease that he hadn't changed. Not that she had expected him to in less than twenty four hours. But still, something was off, the tension in the room was choking her.

Natalia decided to confront it head on, after all, what was another confrontation to her? She had been confronting people all day, "So Alfred, about today,"

"Don't worry about it, I was stupid to over react. I'm over it," he absently told her, still staring at the TV. Natalia felt like he didn't really mean it, but she swallowed hard and nodded, she too returned to the TV screen.

"So how did Lukas kiss you?" Alfred asked, suddenly very cheerful and interested. Natalia noted how his personality and interests change so quickly.

"Well, it was in the hall," she told him, not sure what he meant by "how".

Alfred shook his head, "No not _where_, _how_?"

"I don't… know. Normally?" she gave him a confused look. Alfred shook his head and grabbed the back of her head, roughly pulling her closer to him. Natalia was staring into his sparkling and somewhat devious blue eyes.

"Was is it like this?" Alfred gave her a sloppy kiss on the lips roughly. Natalia cringed slightly at the awfulness of the kiss. He pulled her away from him, and was once again staring into her cold blue eyes, he also noticed that she was blushing and looked to be in shock.

"Or was it like this?" Alfred roughly pulled her into him again and kissed her better than she had ever been kissed. This time, Natalia didn't cringe or try to fight it, and she was admittedly a little disappointed when Alfred pulled her away too soon. He stared at her with questioning eyes, waiting for her answer. Natalia's thought swirled in her head, she wasn't sure what Lukas kissed like, she had slapped him afterwards, so did that mean he was a bad kisser? Or did it just mean that she was mad at him? No, she was pretty sure it was the latter.

"Um, I don't know…" she quietly and absently answered. She then smiled, "Maybe you'll have to give the options again,"

Alfred smirked, seeing what she was doing, "Alright, I'll give you your options as many times as you need,"

"Well it might take me a while to remember," she flirted right back. Alfred leaned in and kissed her again, this time more gentle. She wasn't sure what got into her, but kissing Alfred seemed to make things make more sense. At this moment, she wanted to choose Alfred and never bother with Lukas again. But at the same time, Lukas had always been there for her. Through the times that the girls at school were bullying her over Alfred and he was nowhere in sight to help her, Lukas was always there. So now the question stands: does she choose the one who's been behind her all along, or the one who has just started giving a damn.

Natalia didn't want to think about Lukas while she was kissing Alfred. So she didn't dwell on it any longer.

**So "Laura" in this story is Belgium, because I feel like she'd be an awesome bad—I mean character for this story **** there were a lot of names to choose from in the potential Belgium name list so I chose the first one. List is at this link: . ?title=Human_names. And just out of curiosity, which couple is everyone rooting for? NataliaXLukas or NataliaXAlfred. Hm. I wonder. Because I know which one I'm rooting for! ;) (duh, I'm the author.)**


	13. Chapter 12

**Just a refresher: Laura is Belgium in this story. A name was never given officially to her it is just the speculated name for her.**

Lukas watched Natalia walk hand in hand with Alfred in the opposite direction from him. For some reason their relationship didn't seem forced anymore, and Lukas didn't see the point to keep protecting Natalia from Laura. But still, he felt that it was right, that he didn't have to be with her to protect her. Laura tugged on his hand.

"Lukas, walk me to class," she ordered in a sweet tone. It's not that Laura was unattractive, or that she was especially evil, it was just that Lukas did not want to be with her. Laura was very cute and very beautiful in her own way, but Lukas still thought of Natalia more than he did his "girlfriend". Lukas walked her to her class like she ordered, but said nothing to her. When he dropped her off at her class he gave her a halfhearted kiss and turned to walk to his class. Tino came up to Lukas.

"Why are you still with her?" Tino asked without any warning as he fell into step with Lukas, they were both going to the same class.

Lukas shrugged, "Because I have to be,"

Tino sighed. "Is it because of Natalia? I'm sure there's got to be another way to get Laura's stupid friends to leave her alone that doesn't involve you being forced to date her," Tino knew about the situation, he had helped Matthias and Lukas set up the compromise.

"Well unless you or Matthias wants to date her, I'm stuck," Lukas spoke monotone and seemed to be somewhere else mentally.

"Does she even suspect that you don't like her?" Tino asked, looking down the hallway pensively.

"Yeah I'm pretty sure she does. I'm sure she knows that I kissed Natalia too," Lukas added.

"So pretty much you're stuck until we can find another way," Tino sighed. He was just as frustrated at the situation as Lukas was.

"Matthias is already on it, he just told me to hang in there until he finds a way," Lukas spoke quietly with disinterest or exhaustion; it was hard to distinguish with him.

"On the bright side: you get free sex until then," Tino joked, trying to lighten the mood. Lukas just shook his head, obviously not very interested in sex with Laura. He took his seat in the back of the class and watched Natalia walk in, a moment before the bell rang. She was no doubt just with Alfred, and it made Lukas angry that she could be so carefree with Alfred when he was doing everything he could to ensure that she wouldn't get bullied again.

He had wanted to tell her that he was dating Laura only so that her friends would leave her alone. He had also wanted to tell her that Matthias was only trying to protect him from retaliation from Laura by distancing himself from her. But of course why would Natalia listen to him now? She thought he abandoned her for his girlfriend, and she seemed content hating him. There was no way to get through to Natalia anymore, so why was he still protecting her?

On the other side of the classroom, Natalia sat at her desk and listened in to girls chatting behind her excitedly.

"He's so romantic!" one girl whispered a little louder than intended.

"I can't believe he's doing all of this just to protect someone like her," another added, in a more hushed tone but louder than intended.

"Shh," the third quieted down. "We don't know for sure if he's doing that for her or not! It's just what I heard from Matthias when we were making out after school,"

"So it must be true," the first who spoke added, practically jumping up and down in her seat.

"Shh!" the third whispered back angrily. Their voices soon became too hushed for Natalia to hear, so she gave it up. She didn't want to hear about Matthias's sick flings with girls, and she wasn't the least bit interested in who Matthias was allegedly protecting. She carried out the remainder of the class texting Alfred under her desk and writing down notes.

After class Natalia intended to meet Alfred at the library, but instead she was accosted by Tino.

"Hey Natalia! We haven't talked in a while," Tino happily chatted as he fell into step with Natalia.

"What do you want?" Natalia said with an exasperated sigh.

"What do you mean what do I want?" Tino asked with a fake smile plastered on his face. Natalia glared at him, what was with the friends of Lukas and being fake? It was annoying to her. And Lukas was fake too, she added as an afterthought.

"You friends of Lukas always want something, what is it this time?" she was becoming more and more annoyed.

"Have you been bullied lately?" Tino asked, his happy smile never faltering.

Natalia stopped in her tracks, "How did you know about that?" she asked absently.

"So that's a no I take it?" Tino assumed out loud, not picking up on the fact that she didn't seem in the mood to talk.

"No," she flatly replied, continuing in her walking.

"Well you have Lukas to thank for that," Tino told her, still walking happily next to her.

"No, I don't," she protested.

"Yes, you do," Tino mimicked her tone, which made Natalia scrunch up her nose in annoyance. "You should ask him about it, I have to go, bye!" Tino waved excitedly and rushed off to meet Berwald who was waiting for him.

Natalia sighed heavily and kept on her way to the library. Why was it that none of Lukas's friends could leave her alone? Why were they so obsessed with her? And after what Lukas did to her the other day, she couldn't stand the sight of him anymore. She would never talk to him again.

She met Alfred at their table in the library. She gave him a big smile as she sat down across from him; he smiled at her, and then returned to writing something on a piece of paper haphazardly.

"What are you writing?" she asked, trying to see what he was writing, but his arm was blocking it. She moved her bag and put it on the ground near her feet.

Alfred looked up at her again. "Just finishing an essay for my English class," he told her. The air felt tight to Natalia, something was not right about what Alfred said to her. She decided to play it off as a joke.

"You? Do homework?" she giggled. "Do you want me to look over your essay?" she leaned over the table and tried to look at his paper once more but Alfred nodded and removed the paper from the table to put it into his backpack.

"I think I've got it, thanks though," Alfred insisted. Natalia felt that he was acting weird, but maybe he was just stressed over school? She wasn't sure. She wanted to give him excuses, but she wondered if she should even freak out about this. It could be a personal letter to his grandma for all she knew!

"Okay that's fine," Natalia reached over the table to squeeze his hand and offered him a small smile, of which Alfred returned.

"So anyway, I have to go meet someone, we're doing a project together in Physics," Alfred got up from the table and grabbed his backpack.

"Oh, okay," Natalia looked down at her lap, not bothering to hide her disappointment. Alfred saw the look on her face, and hesitated for a moment. He leaned over the table and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"I'll see you later," he whispered against her hair. Natalia nodded and watched Alfred walk away. She wanted to follow him, but he wasn't technically her boyfriend, so he could do whatever he wanted. She opted for staying in the library and finishing some Calculus homework and leaving Alfred to his own devices. But she still couldn't shake the weird feeling that he left her with.

Alfred exited the school and walked down the stairs. He saw Matthias leaning up against the half wall that surrounded the school's elevated garden with Tino sitting on the bench next to him.

"Hey Matthias, I got your text," Alfred hollered as he approached Matthias and Tino. He didn't know what Matthias had to tell him, but apparently it was urgent.

"Great," Matthias offered a smile. An awkward silence followed and Matthias was staring at his shoes, biting his lip in thought. Alfred wasn't sure whether to speak or to wait, and it appeared that Tino was trying the same strategy as Alfred.

"So, do you know what we need to talk about?" Matthias tried. He was certain that Alfred didn't know, he just didn't know how to approach the subject. Alfred shook his head quickly, he stared at Matthias questioningly.

"Alfred, we have something to tell you about Natalia," Tino spoke up, trying to cheerfully cut through the tension.

Alfred stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, "Again?"

"Yeah, again. But I think Matthias should take this one," Tino nodded towards Matthias.

Matthias uncrossed his arms and pulled his back off of the wall. "Do you know Lukas's girlfriend?"

"No, should I?" Alfred knitted his eyebrows together. What did Lukas's girlfriend have to do with anything?

"I don't know if you should, but I—we," he motioned to Tino, who nodded in agreement, "think you should know the situation at least,"

"Okay?" Alfred replied more as a question. He cocked his head to the side and tried to study Matthias's face for any sign of a prank, or how this involved him at all.

"You're aware of how Natalia was being bullied because you claimed she was your girlfriend," Matthias said as more of an accusation than a statement. Alfred nodded slowly, trying to make Matthias just get on with it already.

"The only reason the bullying has stopped is because our friend," Tino nodded quickly to prove Matthias's point. "Is dating Laura,"

"I don't understand what that has to do with anything," Alfred rolled his eyes. It seemed like they were stretching it.

"Alfred," Tino spoke up. "Lukas cared so much about Natalia that he found the girls responsible for it and made a deal with them,"

"I still don't get it, how does dating one girl out of a bunch of them stop the bullying?" Alfred asked. Tino and Matthias looked at each other knowingly.

"It doesn't matter," Matthias waved it off. He wasn't going to reveal the group's secrets (Tino, himself, and Berwald) and what they did for Lukas to help Natalia of all people.

"We think that you should tell Natalia and let her choose who she likes better once she knows the truth," Tino innocently interjected.

Alfred shook his head, "You guys tell her the truth on your own time, Lukas's 'sacrifice' isn't my problem," he turned around to walk away and hopefully return to the library to be with Natalia.

"But Alfred!" Tino protested.

Matthias snapped. "You're so stupid! Lukas did everything for Natalia and he never gets any credit, and then she acts like she's in love with you when you've never done shit for anybody but yourself!"

Alfred stopped for a moment to think about Matthias's words, he turned around to face the two blonde men. "You tell Lukas if he's man enough to do all of this stuff for a girl who can't stand him, then he's man enough to tell her about it himself," Alfred walked away and went up the steps into the building.

"He's a stupid fucker," Matthias mumbled through his clenched teeth once Alfred was in the building.

"But he has a point," Tino absently said aloud. "If Lukas really wants Natalia he should tell her what he's done for her. Alfred doesn't deserve to have Natalia when he only likes her when it's convenient for him,"

Matthias started to walk towards the school and Tino hopped off the bench to follow him. "You're right, Lukas should do it himself. He can't keep doing things behind the scenes forever,"

"Are we going to find Lukas and tell him then?" Tino asked, catching Matthias's drift.

"Yup," Matthias nodded. The two men walked up the stairs and went in search for Lukas. They both felt like he had done too much already for a girl who only ignores him. If confronting Natalia wasn't so impossible at this point, they probably would've went to her first. But all they knew is that they had put in too much effort for their friend not to have him get the girl. They wanted this story to be different than all the other stories, and they were going to make it happen.

** Such a Lukas heavy chapter 3 much love to Lukas! Such a good man **** but still review and tell me which couple you're rooting for! So far I've gotten a lot of AlfredxNatalia lovers and a few NataliaxLukas lovers **


	14. Chapter 13

**So I can't even remember what I wrote last chapter so if anything is inaccurate, just roll with it.**

"It's so cute how you guys don't fit together at all, but when I see you it looks like it was meant to be," Seychelles was sitting with Alfred, Natalia, Matthias and the gang (along with Lukas) at lunch. Seychelles had proved to be more decent than Natalia previously thought, which was greatly appreciated. Natalia thought that she and Alfred were a good match, and she was content with him.

"Well you know what they say, opposites attract," Alfred offered. He wasn't sure what he and Natalia had, but it appeared to most that they were together, and judging by Natalia's grip on his arm, she must have thought so too.

But there was something bothering Alfred, Natalia kept making eye contact with Lukas, who was at the other end of the table. Normally it wouldn't have been a problem, but it was _how_ she was looking at him, it was like they were having conversations with their eyes. He wondered if anything had gotten into her to make her like Lukas as a person again. Or maybe it was Matthias's and Tino's meddling again.

"Hey did you ever do the history homework?" Seychelles asked Natalia. Natalia wasn't too keen on being friendly and sharing homework with Seychelles, but she figured she'd be generous and try to extend a helping hand to the girl.

Natalia nodded, "Yeah, do you need to borrow it?" Natalia hoped that using "need" instead of "want" would sound less friendly, and less like an open invitation.

Seychelles shook her head, "No, I just need help on a question. But I can probably figure it out next class," Natalia was oddly impressed with Seychelles's integrity; she didn't know that a girl like her had any.

"Oh it's no problem, I'll take Natalia to her locker and we can go get it for you," Alfred quickly offered in place of Natalia. Natalia gave him an incredulous stare and was about to make up an excuse not to go, but Alfred stood up and Natalia followed his expectation and got up herself. Alfred started to walk—no stomp—out of the lunch room. She followed him confused and a little irked herself, what was with his attitude?

When they were safely in the hallway, Natalia ran to catch up with him. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she asked once she fell into step with him. He tried desperately to speed up his walk to get her off his trail, but she wasn't relenting.

"Gotten into me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. What has gotten into you?" he spoke quickly and as if he was frustrated. Natalia didn't understand his frustration or his reaction, but she wasn't giving up just yet.

"What do you mean what has gotten into me? You're the one who made me come out here and now you're running away from me!" she went off on him, her temper was always very short, and Alfred just made that shorter.

Alfred stopped dead in his tracks. "You keep staring at Lukas, like you want him or something,"

Natalia took a step back, as if she were taken aback by his accusation. "B-But," for once, she was speechless. Maybe Alfred was right, maybe she did want Lukas. Why did the girl always have to end up with the boy who's never been there for her in the first place anyway? She was always mesmerized by Lukas's blue eyes, she must have stared excessively at him without meaning to.

Alfred looked into Natalia's eyes, which looked confused and clouded. He grabbed her forearms and pulled her close to him so that he could look into her eyes closely. "Do you have feelings for Lukas?" he calmly asked her, but his expression told a different story.

Natalia stared into his eyes, not sure what to say, or if she had feelings for Lukas. Did she? She thought his eyes were gorgeous and there was something strangely calming about him… And that kiss—but she tried not to think on it. Lukas had betrayed her once and he'd do it again. Perhaps she was growing soft. Who was to blame for that? Alfred, Lukas, or herself?

Alfred shook his head, seeing no immediate answer from Natalia, "You need to figure it out," he ordered her before letting go of her. Natalia let out a breath that she didn't even know she was holding in.

"I don't need to figure anything out. We're not really together so I can feel how I want," Natalia challenged. She sometimes felt like they were together, but in anger she knew that they weren't. People who were in a relationship wouldn't feel this way about each other.

Alfred waved her off, "Feel how you want but just know that you can't have us both," he started to walk back towards the lunch room. Natalia stomped her foot and watched him walk away. She realized how much she hated him sometimes, and how frustrating and condescending he was. But at the same time, she had developed feelings for him. And she probably always would have feelings for Lukas, but who would she choose? Lukas and her weren't speaking, and Alfred and her can't say two words towards each other without fighting. It was all too much to think about, so she resorted to her only escape.

The closet was just as dark and solitary as she remembered, but she loved it for this solitude. Of course the end of lunch bell had long since rung, but she couldn't stop herself from sobbing and pull herself together enough to leave. But why was she sad? She felt like she had every reason to be and no reason at all.

Soon the time went by so that the end of the day bell rung. She felt that she should get up and go home, but she couldn't bring herself to. She wanted to see if anyone would come looking for her. Alfred had sent her several texts, asking her to come over and that he was sorry, but she ignored them all. She wanted to see if he would actually come _look_ for her. But once the clock on her phone turned to four o'clock she knew it was time to give it up.

Natalia slowly exited the janitors closet and started to walk towards the parking lot to try to find her car. After a while of searching around, she finally found her car. She thought it was funny how she could lose her car even when there was only a few cars left in the parking lot. She could've sworn she didn't park in the spot her car was in, but then again she always said that.

"Natalia!" a voice called. Natalia turned around, not sure if she should be relieved that someone called her name or be completely disgusted.

"Lukas?" Natalia said as more of a question than an answer.

"Natalia, I've been waiting for you," he honestly told her. He figured that maybe he should be honest from now on, because he wanted Natalia to know who he was.

"Really?" Natalia asked more hopeful than intended. Then reality set in. "Why?" she asked skeptically.

Lukas took a step towards her and looked at his shoes as if in shame. "Well… Matthias suggested that I tell you why I'm dating Laura,"

"So?" Natalia crossed her arms and tapped her foot. She was getting angry again, especially because it has been a really bad day for her.

"Well Laura said that she could get girls to stop bullying you if I dated her, so I agreed to it," Lukas cut out a lot of details, but he figured Natalia would appreciate something short and simple.

Natalia looked at her boot, that was tapping but stilled itself. She wasn't sure if she believed Lukas, but at this point, she was at a loss for what to believe.

"And if that's true, why don't you just leave her?" she kicked her boot in the ground.

"Because I wasn't sure what she'd do to you," Lukas defended himself.

"You shouldn't concern yourself with me so much, you made it very clear a long time ago that you don't care about me," Natalia took a jab at their past as children, and she immediately regretted it. Lukas looked so hurt by her bringing that up.

"I didn't care then, but I care now," Lukas replied, choosing his words carefully. He felt her slipping away from him, and he knew that if he didn't bring her back she would be gone again.

"Why do you care now?" Natalia challenged.

Lukas sighed quietly, Natalia sure was asking the hard questions now. "I just didn't like seeing you hurt by Alfred, and I guess I still had feelings for you," he admitted.

"Still?" Natalia asked in surprise, her angry demeanor escaping her for a moment.

"You couldn't tell when we were kids?" Lukas mumbled.

"No, I couldn't, not with the way that you treated me," Natalia's anger and hurt towards Lukas returned. She really was becoming an emotional rollercoaster in these times.

"I'm sorry," Lukas was always a man of few words, and he decided that since talking was doing no good, he had to resort back to his nature.

"Sometimes sorry doesn't cut it," Natalia turned to open her car door, but Lukas's words stopped her.

"You know you can keep being mad and pushing everyone away, but you're not fooling anyone anymore, and you can't keep running away," Lukas said it monotone, but it made Natalia stop for a second.

"What am I running from?" Natalia asked in a hushed tone mostly to herself, but Lukas still heard what she said.

"If you're going to run, then run far away, not where everyone can see you," Lukas told her. He was tired of her senseless anger towards him, and how she was always playing the victim. Now he understood why Alfred was always mad at her for one reason or another.

When Natalia said nothing, Lukas sighed and spoke up again, "Listen, make your decision, but stop being a brat about it. No one wants to put up with it anymore," Lukas wasn't sure why he said that, it seemed to out of character for him, but he wanted Natalia to go back to who she was. He didn't want this jaded girl in front of him.

Natalia still didn't speak, but she kept leaning up against her car, as if she were thinking hard about what Lukas had said. Lukas decided to leave quietly so that she could think, he walked to the next row of cars and he got into his car and drove away.

Natalia finally snapped back to reality and pulled herself into her car. No one had ever told her the truth before, or called her on her attitude and immaturity—but Lukas did. Was it that he hated her enough to tell her who she really was or that he cared enough to let her know?

Regardless of everything that had been said, she needed to make her decision. And she finally knew who.


End file.
